


In Salt and Gold

by loquaciousquark



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Sexual Content, Slavery, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:43:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquaciousquark/pseuds/loquaciousquark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danarius wins during the events of 'Alone'; everyone else suffers. The battle at The Hanged Man goes poorly, but it is not Fenris's memories his master takes as penance. Hawke/Fenris, complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **AN:** Another kmeme fill. Original prompt: _In the battle during 'Alone' with Danarius, Danarius wins. Fenris is recaptured, but what he doesn't know is that Danarius also took Hawke with him after the battle. Fenris wakes up, and surprisingly his memories are still intact._
> 
>  
> 
> _Knowing the loving relationship that Fenris has with Hawke Danarius punishes Fenris by presenting him with a 'pet' in the form of a submissive and vulnerable Hawke, whose memories instead of Fenris's have been removed. Danarius expects Fenris to treat Hawke as his own slave, If Fenris refuses, Danarius threatens to not only punish him but also punish Hawke._
> 
>  
> 
> _The whole ordeal is traumatic and extremely distressing for Fenris, but he complies with Danarius's orders as her does not want any harm to come to Hawke._
> 
>  
> 
>  **Warnings:** Graphic violence, torture/emotional abuse, slavery, despair. I'm not sure if the last should be listed, but this is a very dark fic, and I wanted to be sure that anyone reading it is forewarned. However, in the sake of forewarning, I also want to add for those who are concerned that this fic will not contain any dub-con or non-con.
> 
> That said, I am working with the implication that Danarius sexually abused Fenris in the past, so please be aware that there will be consequences of that behavior addressed within the scope of the fic.
> 
> If I haven't scared you off yet, then please, read on!

  


-.-

  


The last thing he remembers is this: a slender blade slides silver-tipped and shining through Hawke's chest.

It splits the skin as easily as it might a pear, clean and smooth and without resistance; she stumbles forward a half-step and Fenris hears the soft thump of her boot against the wooden floor, the only sound in a room gone silent as a grave. She looks down and her hair falls in a black curtain around her face; her fingers rise to touch the tip in faint surprise, as if the polished steel that juts out just to the left of her sternum is no more than a narrow mirror, gleaming and unstained by her blood. Her gasp is only a breath—he feels his heart stop in his chest at the sound of it and yet he can do _nothing_ —the claws of his gauntlets scar into the bloodstained floor as he tries to move, to surge up, to _save her,_ but one of the slavers kneeling on his back grinds his weight deeper into the gash along Fenris's spine, and the one with the knife to his throat yanks at his hair viciously until chunks of it come away between his white-knuckled fingers, and though every muscle in his body bunches, every joint creaks as he strains with the effort, he cannot, cannot, cannot—

The dagger glides out again as if it has been greased. Hawke takes another step forward against the tug, a slender line of blood beading along the edges of the wound, and then, with a quiet sigh, she falls.

Fenris knows he shouts something. He feels the vibration in his throat against the floor, the tearing ache in his chest, but he does not hear it; he sees Isabela restrained by the arms of two slavers, kicking and screaming and crying, her face twisted in rage; he sees Varric's prone figure between the legs of an upended chair, the blood spreading thick and fast from his temple and Bianca forgotten at his side. He sees Hawke's ashen face turned toward his, her cheek flat against the wooden floorboards, her eyes so wide he can see the whites all the way around them.

Her lips shape _Fenris._

Danarius, his face still flushed from the power he has drained from Fenris's tattoos, lets his lips curve into a small, satisfied smile. The slaver with the knife pulls it away, reversing it in the air, and he feels the blunt, blinding pain of a hilt at the base of his skull.

Fenris thinks: if this is to be his last memory of this life, it is better for Danarius to take them after all.

-.-

Awareness returns in a rush. There is no moment of confusion, no struggle to remember why his head aches with thudding brown pain; his first thought is the same as his last— _Hawke—_ and an upswelling of unbearable grief chokes him as easily as a hand around his throat. His fault, his _fault—_ she'd known, she'd tried to warn him, and he'd been so desperate for this piece of his past that he'd stolen her future—

"Fenris?"

His eyes fly open. Her voice, heavy with pain and confusion but— _her voice—_ he searches the darkness with a hope as dangerous as grief, barely registering the swaying heave of a ship at sea, the wooden slats above him letting only the thinnest slats of white sunlight trickle down into the hold, the iron chains spreading his arms wide to either side of where he sits against the wall.

"Hawke?" he says, low and hoarse and unbelieving, and a wretched heap of rags in the opposite corner shifts with a muffled groan.

Hawke sits up. Her dark hair is tousled and matted at the ends with blood, her cheeks too pale even in this grey light, but the rust-stained fabric tearing away from her shoulder shows no gaping wound, no heart-stopping blood, only the broad, shiny expanse of a carelessly-healed scar. She lifts her hands to touch it, the astonishment on her face a reflection of his own, and they both see at once that her hands are bound together at the wrist in thick iron manacles. Her feet, too, as she discovers when she tries to stand, and a thin gold collar settles delicately around her neck, but she is not chained to the wall as he is, and before Fenris can find the breath in him to speak, to warn her away, to tell her—she has crawled to his side on her hands and knees to pull at the shackles on his wrist.

"We are getting out of here _now,_ " she says, low and hard, but something seems to be wrong with her magic, and she can only muster the smallest flakes of frost to creep hesitantly over the iron before they melt away. She blows the bangs from her eyes with a harsh breath and tries again; even less happens this time, despite her efforts and his, and before even a minute has passed she breaks away with a sudden hiss, her hands flying to her neck. "Ow! Fenris, it's—it's _hot—"_

"What— _Hawke_ —"

She bends forward over his knees, her hands clasped tight around her own neck, and her shoulders shake with the effort to keep in her cries. He strains against the chains, desperate and terribly afraid, but the iron is too strong and there is still no strength left in his lyrium and he is utterly, utterly helpless. A moment or two more slips by in the silence, and then her gasps ease with the tension in her shoulders; her fingers spasm once on his leg above his knee as the last of the pain vanishes, and when she finally straightens, Fenris can see the livid burns on the skin of her neck under the collar, red and hot and blistering against the tinkling gold links.

She sees the horror in his eyes and forces a wry smile. "Looks as bad as it feels, does it?" she murmurs without touching it.

His fingers clench into impotent fists. Making light of this even now, collared because of him, smiling when she ought to strike him for his stupidity—her eyes are tired and without censure and when he is no longer able to meet that steady gaze he ducks his head away to shield both her and himself. "This is my doing," he manages, though the words feel like gravel on his tongue. "This is my fault—I am _sorry,_ Hawke—"

"Fenris," she says, her hands cupping his jaw to turn it back towards her, and then she kisses him.

Hawke kisses him for the first time in three years.

His eyes fall closed despite himself. Three years he has held himself away from this—three years he has watched and waited and dreamed of the day he could give her more than the chains of a slave, and only now does he see how foolish he has been, how blind not to accept a gift so freely given while he had the chance. The taste of her lips puts his memories to shame, pale echoes of her sunlit reality in this dim and shadowed room. The muscles of his arms cord under his skin and the manacles dig into his wrists; he is frantic to hold her, to apologize with more than words for what he has done, the pain he has given without thought, for how he has failed her.

Hawke pulls back, intimidated by his silence, but he chases her after while he can still reach her mouth with his own. His kiss is not gentle, but this is not a place for gentleness; his teeth drag at her lip and she groans, and then her manacled wrists drop behind his head as her weight slides over his lap and he draws up his knees behind her to pull her closer, the rough skin of her scarred chest pressing full against his where the tunic is torn. She meets him movement for movement and bite for bite, the violence of her kisses an equal match to his regret and his sorrow and the pounding of his pulse in his throat, and when she breaks away to breathe, her gasps hang as loud as his in the creaking darkness.

"Damn you, Fenris," she says at last. Her fingers twine into his hair. "If I'd known all I had to do was almost die, I'd have done it years ago."

He barks an unamused laugh. "Better for my heart that you have not."

"Your heart, hmm?" She drops her head to press a gentle kiss to his chest, resting her forehead against the thumping, racing beat. "Seems all right to me."

Hawke glances up at him and smiles, but he sees the golden collar glint in the trickling light, the red, blistered skin under it a collar of its own, and what lingering happiness he's managed vanishes. "If you—" he starts, but his throat closes and he has to swallow. "If there is a chance to escape, Hawke, take it."

Her weight shifts against his hip as she sits back. "I won't leave you, Fenris."

He shakes his head, his white hair falling into his eyes. Hawke had wanted to cut it—she'd mentioned it only this morning, a painful lifetime ago—and it is such a _simple_ thing, but he grieves that there will never be a chance. "He will take me to Minrathous," Fenris says. No need to say who _he_ is—no courage to say the word aloud. Slaves do not speak their master's names.

"I've always wanted to travel."

"Don't _joke_ about this, Hawke!" His head slams back against the wall, furious with frustration and guilt. "You do not know him; you underestimate the danger. No magister would tolerate such an insult without repercussions. He will be _ruthless._ "

"All the more reason to stick around, then," she says, but he hears the quaver in her voice. " _Somebody's_ got to protect you."

"Hawke—"

"I don't know why you're giving up, anyway. So we're clapped in irons in the bottom of a boat sailing to a city full of blood mages to await the indescribable tortures of your former master. We've been in worse scrapes, I'm sure."

"Hawke, stop—"

"And besides, Aveline and Anders and Varric and everybody, they all know we're gone. They'll be after us in a heartbeat, I'm sure of it, and let me tell _you_ he sure as the _Void_ won't be so lucky the second time around—"

"Please," says Fenris. His voice is low, and he does not know what she sees in his face, but Hawke falls quiet at last as her forced humor drains away. He knows as well as she does that any rescue that might come will certainly come too late. "I do not…want you to see," he manages at last. To see him stripped of his dignity, of his choices, of any noble thing inside him that she still might care for. To see him become Fenris as he was, Fenris as Danarius meant him to be.

It is enough that she lives. Let her be free, if he cannot.

"Fenris," she says softly, and when her eyes flick up to his they are pinched with fear and grief. "Don't you think we'll be able to escape together? Even from Minrathous?"

 _Oh,_ he thinks. She does not realize. "He will take my memories," Fenris says, as easily explained as a sword form, as the weather. Hawke goes very, very still. "He will have little use for a slave accustomed to a freedom he has not given."

The ship rocks in the trough of a wave. Above them a man's voice cries out, a sailor shouting an order to another, and then Hawke sucks in a breath through her teeth like a woman who has stepped too close to a fire.

"I will _not—"_ she stutters, her eyes alight in rage and savage strength. "I _will not_ let that happen _._ "

Hawke pushes to her knees in a sharp movement—he mourns the loss of her touch, even if it is only for a moment—and then she reaches to her left with her manacled hands and slides her fingers under the red band of cloth still wound around his wrist. "Remember this," she says, her eyes burning into him, her fingers twisting into the cloth to pull it tight against his pulse. He can find nothing to say, but she is already moving again, already slipping her hands along his arm to his neck, her thumbs tracing the lines of his lyrium as if to map it all over again until they stop at the base of his throat.

"Remember _this,_ " she says again, her fingers trailing fire, and she kisses him.

There is no regret in this kiss, no sorrow for the years he has let slip them by—this is heat and light and unwavering intent, a blazing thing that sears right through him to turn the worst of his fears to ash, scalding and healing at the same time, as if he has stepped into Andraste's pyre and been cleansed.

"And," she whispers against his mouth, though he is dazed enough that it is an effort to focus on her voice, "remember this: I am in love with you, Fenris." _This_ breaks through his daze to stagger him; her words strike him like a blow to stop his heart in his chest. She draws back, mouth wry. "If nothing else, remember that."

"Hawke," he says, and her eyes close at the sound of it. He says her name again and she shivers, and it is not to stop her but to imprint the word in his heart like a brand deeper than any lyrium, to make her into a thing he cannot forget no matter how severely Danarius carves into him, no matter what parts of him he tears away. " _Hawke,_ " he breathes, and when she opens her eyes in the dim and shafting light they shine with tears.

The door slams open.

Three men stand silhouetted in the sudden burst of light, their faces masked not only by shadow but by the grated helmets of Tevinter slavers. "The magister's ready to begin the ritual," one of them says impassively. "Let's go."

Hawke straightens beside him, her hands falling to her lap, and glares at them without fear. "Let Danarius come himself. I don't have time to waste with interchangeable lackeys," she says and Fenris groans, but the slavers do not react save to step forward, into the dark. One of them glances at the other two, and without hesitation, they reach down for their target.

Their hands close around Hawke.

Their hands close around _Hawke_ , and suddenly Fenris realizes with terrible certainty why she was the one not chained to the wall.

" _No!_ " The cry tears out of him, transparent in its fear, but it is too late, too _late—_ the slavers' hands are implacable and unrelenting despite her struggles and Hawke cries out as their grip twists her shoulder in its socket—her eyes meet his in wordless pleading and blinder terror and he sees her say _remember this!_ but no matter how he strains and braces his feet on the wall behind him he can get no leverage, and though he nearly breaks his arms in their chains the purchase is not enough to free him, to free _her._ "Danarius!" he howls, as if the magister might hear him, might be moved by his dread. "Danarius, _stop!_ Take me, take _me_ instead! Danarius!" and then, in the utter desperation of a breaking spirit, " _Master!"_

They drag Hawke through the door. He catches one last glimpse of her white, sunlit face, and then the door closes after them.

Fenris stares after them. His mind is blank. His voice is silent. He hears men speaking outside, above him, but the words are meaningless; they wash over him like water, muffled and indistinct, and he feels himself drowning in the sound of it.

His head sags forward on his shoulders, the weight of it too heavy to hold. The ship rocks gently under him and he looks without seeing at his knees, at his bare feet still tucked under him, poised to leap; he feels the faint burn of powerful magic ripple across his skin, itching and unspeakably familiar. _Danarius._

Fenris hears him greet her with refined politeness. Hawke's shaking, derisive voice answers him.

Danarius laughs, then, and the magic ripples, and then Hawke screams, and screams, and screams.

-.-

Once, Hawke had taken him and Aveline and Merrill to Sundermount. He doesn't remember why, now—something frivolous or magical or both, he's sure—but halfway up the sun had broken through the clouds to turn the grey-washed mountain into something greener, something _alive_. It had caught on a little vine of yellow flowers bursting out of a boulder beside them to turn them gold; Merrill had exclaimed in delight and Hawke had plucked one for Aveline's hair, and the sheer joy in her face as the warrior had flushed and tucked her hair behind her ears had warmed something inside him that he hadn't known was cold.

She'd turned to him, then, and said, "It's days like this that make you glad to be alive, Fenris!"

-.-

He does not see Hawke for three days. He hears her, sometimes, though she screams less and begs more, but Danarius does not stop or come to him, even to gloat, and he does not bring Hawke. A guard feeds him on the second day, but no matter how he pleads and threatens alternately no voice issues from the black, grated helmet, and when Fenris is done she unknots the red ribbon from his wrist and the Amell crest from his hip and dumps them in the empty bowl, and she leaves him again in the dark.

On the fourth day, he does not hear Hawke at all.

He wonders if she is dead. He wonders, too, if it would hurt him or relieve him more if that were true.

-.-

There is a hand stroking his hair.

Hawke's hand, he thinks at first, to pull him from the throes of the worst nightmare he has ever had—he leans into it, his eyes nearly too heavy to open. His shoulders throb with a deep, thumping ache, stretched as they are out to his sides, and his muscles bunch as he tries to ease them—

"Up, up, my pet," murmurs a voice—a man's voice—and Fenris comes awake with a start.

Danarius's voice. Danarius, smiling down at him fondly, Danarius's hand in his hair.

Fenris jerks away with a snarl, baring his teeth in a threat that would have had any other enemy paling with fear. Danarius, though, seems little more than amused as he lets his hand drop to hold Fenris's chin between thumb and forefinger, forcing his face into line with his own. "My dear boy," he says, his thumb rubbing gently over the raised lyrium on his chin, "how I've missed you."

His lip curls, but before he can spit out an answer Danarius sparks lightning into the lyrium, letting the electric agony race through his skin until he is sagging bonelessly into the magister's grasp. "Come, now," he says chidingly, as if Fenris has disappointed him, "there's no need to be so uncouth. I've even brought you a present to welcome you back into my service."

He steps aside, then, his hand sliding to the back of Fenris's neck like the scruff of a wayward pup, and Fenris sees what crouches behind him.

Hawke.

Hawke, on her knees, her face pressed flat to the floor, bathed and dressed in the white, undyed robe of a slave. "Sit up, girl," says Danarius and she obeys with alacrity, her black hair falling loose around her face though her eyes are still trained on the floor. The breath leaves Fenris in a soughing rush and Danarius's fingers tighten on his neck; Hawke's face is empty and blank, physically unharmed but mentally _gone_ , as aware of her surroundings and of _him_ as a corpse.

Hawke lifts her eyes to his, and she does not know him.

"Welcome _home,_ Fenris," says Danarius, and he can hear the smile in his voice.

_No._

No, no, _no—_ Fenris knows he should remain calm, should mirror the emptiness of her face for both her sake and his but this, this is _wrong—_ horror surges up with his gorge and he is going to be _sick_ , because he has done this to Hawke with his failure, with his ignorance, with his blind hope too easily unchecked. He knows his anguish is spread across his face as easy to read as the words Hawke taught him, knows that Danarius will see it and recognize it for what it is, and even though he knows, too, that it will accomplish nothing, he wrenches forward against the chains, against Danarius's pinching fingers on his neck.

 _"Down,_ Fenris," says Danarius, the thinnest thread of warning edging his voice. Fenris has every intention of ignoring it, of straining until either the chains or his arms give way, but Hawke _flinches_ at the sound, and that alone is enough to make him subside. "Good boy. Look," he adds, as if Fenris could possibly tear his eyes away from the woman kneeling cowed before him. "I've brought you a Champion of your very own."

 _"Danarius,"_ Fenris snarls, finding his voice at last—he wants to scream, to kill, to tear the man's heart out with his own hand for taking what Hawke had already given him and twisting it so cruelly—but Danarius is a cruel man, and at the sound of his name he nods at one of the guards, who steps forward and backhands Hawke across the face.

She cries out as she falls sideways, one hand flying to her cheek in agony—but it is Danarius she looks to for aid, not Fenris, and Danarius who gestures her back to her knees. "I apologize, Champion," he says, the title a mockery of her pain, "for Fenris's lack of decorum. Slaves bear the sins of their masters, I'm afraid, and when a master errs so must his slaves suffer."

"Of course, Master," she breathes, her face sinking back to the floor. Her pain is riveting in the way a massacre is riveting, and Fenris cannot look away.

"You understand, Fenris," Danarius says, and the hand on his neck slides into his hair to grip it and turn Fenris's face up to his. "A pet of your own, my pet, to ease your _burdens_ in my service."

A slave. _His_ slave, Hawke, to keep Fenris from rebelling, to be punished for his failures, to ensure that his devotion does not waver with errant thoughts of freedom again. Perfect and brutal.

"Thank your master," says Danarius. His fingernails drag lightly over Fenris's scalp. The Champion of Kirkwall presses her face further into the floorboards of the ship, terror at Fenris's long silence making her twitch. The blistered skin of her neck has still not begun to heal.

Something closes off in the deepest part of Fenris's mind, a well-built wall he had almost forgotten he knew rising into place to guard his thoughts, to seal away the parts of him not fit for a slave in service to his master. He _feels_ it go, the freedom and the kindness and the trust in one other than himself, and when Hawke shivers he relaxes into Danarius's hand, a pet accepting the touch of its owner.

 

Fenris says, "Thank you."

-.-

It takes him so little time to fall back into his routine that it stuns him. Ten years and he remembers how many paces to keep behind Danarius, the grease-sweet smell of the oil he uses on his beard; ten years and he remembers the meaning of every glance to the side, every quiet clearing of the man's throat. Danarius gives him no sword but he is a weapon in and of himself, and when Danarius makes certain to keep his lyrium drained to near dregs as the days pass, he knows that the magister does not yet trust him again, even with the surety of the collar and leash he has made of Hawke.

Hawke herself learns quickly, too, though that is as much necessity as what is left of her new-stripped personality. She does not leave Fenris's side as her blistered neck heals, dutiful slave that she is, nor does she lift her eyes; Danarius smiles when he sees her kneeling before his pet, holding a bowl to his lips, or simply waiting quietly for the few commands he gives to please Danarius. Fenris cannot even muster outrage at the sight of it—he is numb, frozen inside and out, as cold as death save that his heart has not stopped beating. The day they dock in Minrathous nearly three weeks after leaving Kirkwall, the day Danarius releases him from the hold of the ship, he does not even touch the driving ache in his shoulders; he simply rises to his feet, his gaze fixed to the wall, and steps into place at Danarius's back, where he belongs.

Hawke, silent and pale, collared in gold, stands behind _him_.

The travel to Danarius's estate is a blur. The heat of Minrathous swells around him, drowning him with the cloudless blue of the sky; even the smell of the wheat fields in the summer sun coils around him as familiar as a lover, as if his years away have been nothing but a passing dream in the stark reality of this life he was born to. He remembers, too, exactly how much time it takes to arrive at the estate, and when Danarius crooks his finger as they enter the enormous foyer Fenris jerks into motion, a marionette dancing to the strings of his master, knotted to his fingers with the iron-threaded line of despair.

"I will have a banquet here tonight," he says, letting his hand follow along the lyrium under Fenris's jaw, "in celebration of your safe return. You remember your duties, I trust."

Fenris nods without speaking, but when Danarius rests the pad of his thumb on one of the tattoos pointedly, he dips his head in acquiescence. "I do, Master."

"I am pleased," says Danarius, smiling, and Fenris thinks that at least his numbness is thorough, that the praise that would have once had him glowing penetrates no deeper than his skin. His master's eyes flick behind him to where Hawke stands at their pleasure, and he adds, "Bring the Champion as well. A novelty, I think, that we are in desperate need of. Bathe, both of you, and await me in the atrium." Danarius turns, then, sweeping toward the great arched doors at the end of the hall, and two slaves leap to open them for him. Just as he remembers.

He stands there a moment more, waiting to feel—anything. Fury, rage, grief, sorrow, even shame—he would take any of them, would take them all at once if it would shatter this _nothing_ he is trapped in. The slave at the door looks at him askance, clearly curious at both his appearance and his delay, and Fenris meets his gaze impassively until the slave flinches and looks away.

"Master?" murmurs Hawke, and another sheet of ice settles cold and clear around his heart.

Fenris steps forward without a word, and Hawke's feet patter on the marble floor as she scrambles to catch up with him.

-.-

The dinner party begins promptly at eight o'clock, and Fenris and Hawke are both bathed and dressed by the time Danarius emerges from his rooms in a splendid gold robe. "Excellent, Fenris," he says, clapping his hands together as Fenris bows his head. The rings on his fingers glint in the candlelight as he cups Hawke's face in his hand, turning her head from side to side so that her collar gleams, as if appraising a well-made vase. "Lovely work. My guests will be so pleased."

"Thank you, Master," he says, the words sliding easily from his tongue, and Hawke echoes him with a faint flush.

"Good girl," he says as he pats her cheek, and they follow him into the dining room.

Most of the guests have already arrived, the conversations filling the room as magister and noble alike rise to greet their host. Fenris sees more than one eye turn towards him and the woman behind him; he hears titters and open gasps, but he still does not care—his muscles remember this better than his mind, and even as Danarius takes his seat at the head of the glittering, crystal-laden table Fenris leads Hawke to the sideboard, where cut-glass decanters wait to be filled with wine. He lets the magisters gape their fill of him and Hawke both, a lyrium-branded elf designed to intimidate and a frightened human woman cringing at his side, and when Danarius gestures, he fills the decanter with practiced movements and brings the wine to his master.

It is so automatic. It is so _easy_ to do this now, to shut off his conscious mind and slip back into the role of Danarius's velvet-sheathed blade, to pour the wine into his glass until the scarlet flood just brushes the topmost etching below the rim. To settle back on his heels while Danarius swirls the wine in the glass and takes a delicate sip, to move on at his nod of approval to the next magister beside him, ignoring the inevitable whispers of nervous, giddy excitement at the deadly animal filling their glasses. Fenris pours the wine into the last noblewoman's proffered glass, taking no notice of her flirtatious wink, and without a word retakes his place at the side of the hall, beside Hawke who stands noiseless and demure and frightened.

The first two courses proceed without incident, but the third is the one that brings disaster.

"And now," begins Danarius, rising to his feet. "I'm sure you must have all been curious as to the lovely company joining us tonight." He gestures grandly at Hawke, who colors at his compliment but does not look up, and a few magisters laugh. "Please, honored friends, allow me to present to you the Champion of Kirkwall."

The uproar makes even Fenris wince. They will know her without doubt, the woman who slew the Arishok in single combat now blushing by the sideboard. Some of the magisters jump to their feet, craning their necks over the table to see her better; a pair of women duck their heads together in catty conversation, one of them toying with a long strand of pearls around her neck; on the near side, more than one nobleman looks at Hawke in new appraisal, their gazes sweeping from her head to her toes in open consideration, and at the head of the table, Danarius looks so satisfied that for an instant Fenris almost— _almost—_ feels angry.

"Master, _please_ ," Hawke whispers in a plea unheard by any but himself, and Fenris starts—but before he can even think to move, Danarius beckons Hawke to the head of the table as other slaves clear away the soup dishes.

She goes, her steps stuttering and stilted with humiliation, but her grace as she sinks to her knees at Danarius's side is visible even from Fenris's position. "Serve the next course," Danarius tells her, two fingers looping into her collar to pull her back to her feet, and Hawke dips an anxious curtsey before retreating. Her hands shake as she reaches for the first delicate plate, the steam from the poached salmon curling around her arms.

"Serve from the left," Fenris mutters without looking at her, and her eyes fly to his. "In the same order as I did. Don't touch them if you can help it."

She nods, growing more confident—and again Fenris thinks he feels a twinge of— _something—_ but it is gone before he can catch it, and he watches quietly as she serves Danarius his fish. "Good girl," her master says again, and Hawke dares a smile before fetching the next plate. Her movements become hypnotic as she passes by again and again, settling soon enough into a routine of her own, and Fenris allows himself to close his eyes, to pretend for only a moment that he is—anywhere else—

He hears the crash of shattering china, and a woman shrieks.

It _is_ disaster. There is no other name for it, no other way to describe Hawke flung flat on the floor, one of the delicate china plates in shards around her, and a full filet sliding down the front of one of the magisters' elegant, _expensive_ robes. _"Bitch_ ," the woman hisses and her foot catches Hawke clean in the chest, and Fenris skirts the table just in time to see one of the catty women sitting two seats down, the one who'd toyed with her pearls, pulling her protruding chair legs back into place.

"Forgive me, my lady, forgive me—I'm so sorry," Hawke babbles, pushing away from the pointed heel of her shoe; the woman kicks out again and Hawke recoils, and Danarius stands with a face as black as pitch.

"Remove her," he snaps, his fingers twitching as if he'd like to strike Hawke himself. "Wait for me upstairs."

Fenris is already pulling Hawke to her feet, already wrapping his hands around her bare arms to hurry her from the room while a passel of other slaves descends to clean up the mess they leave behind. The door slips closed behind them with a soft click and the racket grows suddenly muted, and as they cross the silent atrium Fenris realizes Hawke is shaking.

He also realizes that this is the first time he has touched Hawke since before her memories were taken.

His grip eases despite himself. Her skin is still just as smooth, just as soft; her hair still falls in a black curtain over her shoulders to shine in the candlelight, and standing behind her like this, Fenris can almost convince himself that this is his own Hawke, unchanged and unhurt by his ignorance, his failure, his near-unbearable guilt.

And then she looks over her shoulder at him, unrecognizing and terrified, and the illusion shatters. "Forgive me, Master," she says, and then she whimpers. Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, who has stood by him without question for years, who whispered against his mouth that she loved him, whimpers in fear at his face.

Fenris leads her upstairs without a word. He still feels nothing.

-.-

They kneel in the antechamber to Danarius's rooms for nearly two hours. Fenris keeps his back straight and his eyes low, as he remembers; Hawke is too frightened even for that and prostrates herself on the floor beside him. Every now and again little tremors of panic ripple down her spine, the bony knobs easily distinguishable against the thin fabric of her shift, but even now he cannot muster pity. The antechamber is white—painted walls and slender, fluted columns, polished marble floors without rugs to soften their shine, a ceiling of carved ivory plaster to catch the echoes and return them; he is as empty as the room, white and hard and lifeless. He wonders if this is what it must be like to be Tranquil.

Danarius comes at last, and even though the moon is high in the night sky, his temper has not cooled in the slightest. Hawke presses herself further into the floor, shuddering, but Fenris does not move—he is not at fault, here, and Danarius's anger will not turn towards him unless he draws it. His master stops at Hawke's outstretched hands and crosses his arms over his chest; his face is still dark, though his movements are controlled, and he stands there for several minutes to watch the Champion of Kirkwall cower at his feet. She is well-trained enough to know that she may not speak without permission, but when Danarius circles around her in slow contemplation like a cat teasing a mouse, she flinches at every velvet thud of his boot-heels on the marble floor.

"I brought you here," he says at last, "to demonstrate that no slave may stand against me, even with the aid of one so lofty as the Champion of Kirkwall." Hawke says nothing, and he continues thoughtfully, "And yet, in my moment of glory, you made yourself out to be a gutless fool not worthy of respect, and I find, Champion, that the reflection on me is no less unpleasant." He stops beside her and she flinches again, but when she still does not speak, Danarius prods her temple sharply with his toe. "Have you anything to say for yourself?"

Hawke raises her head just enough to kiss his boot.

"Forgive me, Master, I beg you," she breathes against the black leather. Fenris can see tears standing in the corners of her eyes squeezed shut. He does not look away—he feels nothing, even now, even at this humiliation—but he thinks with some distant part of his mind that he ought to watch, ought to see what his failure has done to Hawke, who loved him once. His duty for destroying her.

Danarius bends, then, and curves his fingers like claws into Hawke's hair, dragging her by the black tangle to her feet. "You presume, slave," he hisses into her face gone white with terror, white as the room around them. He flings his arm to the side and she stumbles away, and before she can catch her balance he has followed her over, yanking a leather thong from his belt and pushing her against one of the white columns in the center of the room.

Danarius ties her hands to it.

 _Ah,_ thinks Fenris, and when his master disappears into his room and returns with a whip, it is no more than he expects. Hawke, though, is not so unaffected; she whines low in her throat, the keening of an animal witless with fear. A smile creeps across Danarius's face at the sound and he raises his hand—Hawke ducks her head with a muffled cry—but before the blow can fall Danarius pauses, and he studies the whip, and then he turns to Fenris.

Fenris freezes. This is _not_ expected.

His master's hand uncurls like a flower before him, opening to reveal the short, stocky handle with the leather loop at the end of it. "Fenris," Danarius says, "your pet has been recalcitrant."

He—no— _no,_ he cannot do this—he does not speak, does not contradict his master, but neither does he move, and when Danarius sees the refusal in his eyes he gives a thin-lipped smile that sends a chill skittering down his spine. "Reluctant, dear boy? Then I will do it for you." And then before Fenris can even think of standing, Danarius has reared back and brought down the full weight of his strength on Hawke's back.

The crack is _deafening_ and Hawke shrieks in agony as she goes to her knees—worse, the echoes do not let it die; they go on and on and on and leap straight through Fenris's chest to make it very hard to breathe. Gasping, he struggles to move, but it is still not fast enough—Danarius strikes her again so hard the whip whistles through the air and curls around her ribs in a caress that leaves her bleeding. Too much—it is too much—and then Fenris is on his feet without knowing how, and before Danarius can let loose a third blow, he steps forward with outstretched hand and a heart that pounds in his ears with—with— _something_ —

That same cold smile splits across his master's face as he relinquishes the whip into the lyrium-lined hands of his slave. The wood is cool, the handle short and made of hickory with a sweat-stained leather grip wrapped around the end; the lash itself is maybe three feet long and wide, soft leather, meant for welting the skin instead of breaking it, for pain rather than lasting damage. Fenris himself, obedient and docile as he was, has only felt it a handful of times in his life that he remembers, but even those memories are more than enough, and now he is going to do the same to Hawke. She looks up at him with pain-glazed eyes, tears tracking down her cheeks in an unbroken trail of silent, useless pleading.

"Twenty lashes," Danarius says, cold and satisfied, and he steps back to the edge of the white-painted wall, out of danger of bloodstains. "And you may count those two as yours."

Eighteen more lashes. He raises his hand only as high as he must to please Danarius, to prevent the magister resuming the beating on grounds of excess gentleness, and then Fenris brings the whip down across Hawke's back.

_One._

-.-

Once, when Fenris had been with Hawke just over a year, they'd stumbled across a band of slavers in the alleys of Darktown. Isabela had danced in and out with her blades beside him and Anders had been remarkably helpful for once, and the comical astonishment on the face of the last man as he'd fallen had made even Fenris chuckle.

" _Really_ ," Isabela had said, toeing the hand of one of the fallen slavers into an obscene gesture. "Is this what we've come to these days?"

"Take it for what it is," Hawke had said with a laugh, but as she'd passed Fenris she'd tripped on a dropped sword and fallen forward, and without thinking he'd stretched out his arm and caught her around the waist. Anders had fretted and Isabela had laughed outright, but when Fenris, flushing with something not quite embarrassment, had set her back on her feet, she'd risen to her toes to kiss his cheek before releasing him.

She'd grinned, and said, "My hero."

-.-

He does not lose count of the lashes. The motion is all mechanical, all striving muscle and shifting weight and Hawke screaming and screaming at the pain he is beating into her, a simple, mindless movement that leaves his head free to focus on her cries and the slick-thudding snap of the whip. She writhes, too, and strains against the thong wrapped around her wrists, desperate to be away from the elf bringing her such agony—but there is no escape for either of them, so Fenris whips her, and counts the lashes.

At least he does not draw blood, in the beginning—he is comforted by that, by the sick, twisted knowledge that he is not hitting her half as hard as Danarius would—but the ninth stroke breaks open a weal already risen across her shoulders, dragging to her skin a scarlet ribbon of blood. The next strokes smear it across her back, staining the tatters of her slave's robe and bringing a white froth to the edges of the wounds, but he does not hesitate; Fenris knows that to stop now would only incense Danarius further, would only result in worse beatings for the both of them, and if he can spare her any part of that pain by finishing this torture now, he will not falter, even if she hates him for it.

In truth, he would prefer that. He deserves her scorn.

Hawke drops her forehead against the floor, digging her weight into the base of the column she is tied to as if that might ease her misery. Twenty strokes—only eight remaining, only eight—she sobs into the floor, loud, gasping breaths ripped from her throat to flood the air around them, brought back to his ears again and again by the echoing of the ivory ceiling. Blood spatters the marble floor, the white column she kneels against—Hawke's blood, drawn by his hand. There is a reason Danarius keeps no carpets in this room.

Six strokes left.

He would like to weep, he thinks.

Five strokes left—and against the wall, Danarius laughs.

It is a quiet thing, heard only because Fenris is between strikes and Hawke is between sobs, but the low, vicious cruelty of it carries straight to his heart, and Fenris's chest seizes for an instant—he feels—he hates, he hates, _he_ _hates Danarius—_

And the ice around his heart cracks like glass. He clenches at the edges before they can reform, prying the ice back without mercy, without thought—a thin little curl of hot hate spirals heavenward and the scorch of it cracks the ice even further. He hates Danarius, hates him so much it hurts; he hates Hawke for breaking; he _hates_ himself for breaking her. The hate burns into him and _oh,_ it hurts, but it is a shadow of what he has done to Hawke and at least he can _feel_ —

Three strokes left—

He cups his hands around the pain like a battered bird to guard it, to protect it, this broken thing to match the broken beast inside him. Hawke weeps at his feet.

Two strokes—

The collar glitters in the white, white room.

One—

He hates, he feels, he _hates_ —

And it is over.

Twenty lashes he's given her, and twenty lashmarks spread across the once-smooth skin of Hawke's back. She writhes still, weakly, the back of her neck pressed against the base of the column sprayed with her blood, as if she might curl away from the pain with nothing more than her will. Her eyes are squeezed shut, though salt tears still trickle out from under her eyelids to pool on the side of her nose, on the pinched curve of her lips; she tries to draw her knees to her chest as if to present a smaller target, but the strain on her lacerated back makes her cry out again.

Fenris hears Danarius push off the wall behind him. He does not turn, though—his back is straight and iron-stiff, the whip still clenched in his hand, no longer docile but still obedient, for the moment, and he thinks his master senses how near he is to breaking. "Have this cleaned," says Danarius to his back. "Attend to me in the morning."

Fenris nods, once, a sharp motion that makes the tense muscles of his neck protest, and with a soft swish of robes, Danarius is gone.

For a long minute he stands there still, unmoving. Hawke is a mass of tears and silent shudders and when at last she relaxes into a low moan that even the room will not carry, Fenris feels the wooden handle of the whip crack in his fist. He looks down at the quiet snap—Hawke's blood is still staining the leather grip, still hot and slick between his fingers—he is horrified, he is _revolted,_ and with a swift bunching of muscle and all the strength he held back against Hawke he hurls the Maker-damned thing against the wall. The shaft shatters longways at the force of it, exploding into little more than splinters that shower down over the marble floor with a gentle, tinkling noise, like crystal. His hands shake like an old man's, a palsy made of rage and fear.

The door opens quietly behind him and he whirls, half-ready to slay whoever has dared to follow after Danarius, to mock Hawke's pain—but it is no magister in the door but a handful of slaves with buckets and scrub brushes and pity in their eyes. One of the women, an older, sturdy elf with kind eyes, gives the rest soft instructions and they disperse to clean away the stains of Hawke's blood; the woman approaches Fenris, and Hawke who lies behind him, with only a little trepidation. Still, Fenris shifts to block her—as if she could possibly hurt Hawke more than he has—and she stops with her hands raised.

"I only wish to treat her wounds," she says, her voice lower than he expects.

 _"Don't touch her_."

She frowns and steps closer; Fenris snarls, the sound of a wounded wolf, but it neither stops nor scares her. The woman peers around him and clucks her tongue. "Poor girl," she murmurs, and when another slave hurries up with a basin of warm water and a white cloth, she shakes her head. "Worse than I thought," she says with a glance at Fenris. "Let's take her to her room and make her comfortable, at least, before we start."

The hate is still surging inside him. A voice whispers: _kill them all, kill them all for seeing her like this, tear them to shreds before they turn on you and let her die, let her die as you let her be taken_ —but the woman still waits with sympathy written all over her middle-aged face, and with a tense nod, Fenris steps back.

They bring her to his room in short order; as Danarius's bodyguard, his quarters are not far from the man he is supposed to protect. He tries, only once, to help carry her, and when she cries out and recoils from his touch he does not try again. His room is tiny, little more than a cot and a pair of candles and a high, square window that he still remembers clearly after all this time; they lay Hawke on his cot, face down, and she muffles her exhausted sobs in his pillow. The elf woman kneels beside her, stripping off the ragged, torn remains of her robe with gentle fingers as Fenris watches silently from the corner, arms crossed to hide their shaking, to keep his trembling, shuddering breaths pressed tight against his chest. Then the washcloth dips into the basin with a quiet splash, and when the first stroke brushes over her welts, she hisses once and then lies still. She does not even twitch when Fenris shifts his weight in the corner and he does not know what this means; and yet, as the water in the basin slowly reddens with blood and froth, the hate subsides and leaves in its wake only grief.

He remembers grief, too, though both the feeling and the memory surprise him; it has been so long since he has felt anything at all and hate's howling fury has always been infinitely more familiar, and he barely recognizes the still waters of grief's deeper call in the silence. He thinks again that he would like to weep, but this sorrow is too great for such selfish weakness when Hawke's sobs are still so fresh, and instead, he watches the golden links of the collar gleam with the shift of her shallow breaths.

The woman rises at last, cupping the basin and the bloody cloth in both hands, Hawke's back cleaned and bandaged and a new robe laid out for her when she is healed. She ducks her head at Fenris, less intimidated and more compassionate, and begins to withdraw before hesitating at the door.

"I remember you," she says finally, and Fenris shifts against the wall, surprised. He does not recognize her. "I know," she adds at his look, that same kind smile spreading across her face. "I worked in the kitchens, back then, but we all knew about you. Sometimes we'd look forward to mealtimes, just because we'd get the chance to see the master's handsome bodyguard."

He looks away at that, doubting and self-conscious, but she continues, "And then you and the master went to Seheron, and only he came back."

Fenris does not know why he feels like he owes her an explanation; perhaps it is the knowledge that Danarius would have taken his wrath out on those he'd left behind, or perhaps it is simply the guilt that still weighs too heavy on his soul. Hawke's breathing is slow and steady, and he cannot tell if she is asleep or listening, but the words come out before he can stop them. "I slaughtered a people who gave me shelter," he says, "and then I fled. It was…inevitable, in the end."

"I know," she says. Her fingers play along the edge of the basin. "We hear rumors, even here. A slave with lyrium brands who appeared in cities to the south, who surfaced at last on the edge of the Waking Sea." She darts a glance in his direction, and if the smile on her careworn face is bitter, it is not unkind. "Who became the lover of the Champion of Kirkwall."

His eyes fly to Hawke, but her breathing does not change, and he pushes away from the wall in a sharp movement. "That was another lifetime," he says, and his voice is low and rough, aching with the sudden press of a wound not yet scarred over. "And she was another woman, then. You have my gratitude for your help tonight, but do not mistake that for license. That world is done—do _not_ remind me of it."

Her smile falls away, but she does not look angry—instead she looks only _sad_ , and she turns again to the door. "That ribbon..." she says to the doorknob. "The red one they took from you. The master keeps it in the middle drawer of his desk."

She chances a glance at him over her shoulder and pauses—he wonders if she sees the anguish in his face, the raw and ugly bitterness of this last reminder of Hawke as she was. "I thought you'd like to know," she whispers.

Fenris says, "Thank you."

The door closes behind her with a soft click. He realizes he never asked her name.

 

 

The candles are not long-lasting—they are cheap and meant for a slave's consumption, after all—but it takes a long time before Fenris musters the strength to cross his tiny room and extinguish them. Hawke still has not moved on his cot, and when he leans over her in the starlit darkness her eyes are closed, her eyebrows furrowed with pain. He sighs and his breath ruffles her hair, and before he can be swallowed by his guilt he reaches down and smoothes a finger over her cheekbone. It is so easy to pretend, like this, when her eyes are closed and her face is half-turned into his pillow, so easy to fool himself into something a thousand times as painful as a whip, but when Hawke lets out a soft sigh and turns into his touch like a lover seeking approval, he withdraws with a sharp breath. She does not chase him, though, and she does not wake, and when she settles back into his pillow he unfolds the soft blanket he keeps under his bed and drapes it over her, careful beyond reason not to snag the bandages with his movements.

She lets out one last sigh, and then she is silent. Fenris waits a moment more, and then he settles down against the wall beneath the window, his legs stretched out in front of him and his arms crossed over his chest, and as the stars of Minrathous slip by overhead, he sleeps.

Fenris wakes only once, a few hours before dawn, at the soft shifting of fabric and a sudden gentle weight on his thigh. Hawke's head on his lap, he realizes, Hawke leaving the relative comfort of his bed to curl her beaten body, still wrapped in his blanket, around his hip. He swallows, startled and afraid to frighten her, but when his hand settles tentatively on her neck, just above the collar, she lets out a quiet hum and relaxes into sleep.

He knows he should not read too deeply into this; he knows that Hawke is dazed by pain and a memory torn clean out of her; he knows that this may be nothing more than a slave's desperation for human touch, that any tenderness he might show now will do little to ease the whipmarks he has left on her skin. And yet—and yet this is more than she has shown in nearly a month, the first time in four weeks she has given any emotion other than fear and uncertainty, and what is more, she has given it to _him_ , even after what he has done to her.

Fenris realizes: he remembers hope.


	2. Chapter 2

Fenris does not know if it is due to her magic or something more innately Fereldan, but Hawke has always been a quick healer, and even with the sealing power of the gold collar still draped around her neck it takes less than a week for her wounds to scab over and those scabs begin to heal. She is up and about in a few days and shadowing him again through Danarius's lavish halls, carrying out with ease the few orders her forces himself to give her, though he still sees her wince and move too gingerly when she thinks he is not looking. Worse, though, is the impassivity in her eyes; there is no trace of the softer thing she'd shown him that night, but neither is there censure, and he does not know how to reconcile his fierce desire for either with his certainty that he deserves _nothing_ , so instead he changes her bandages and guards her steps and quietly plans their escape.  
   
And he knows: they will escape. He is as certain of this as he has ever been of anything in his life—he will do this for her, if not for him, because if the ice cracking around his heart thawed anything left inside it, it is the warmth of Hawke's lips as she whispered _I am in love with you_ , his last fleeting memory of even an instant of happiness _._ He may deserve nothing but her contempt, now, but _she_ deserves freedom, and he will use every ounce of strength he possesses and more to give it to her. It will take time—as she is now, she can neither run nor understand their flight—but the instant Hawke is capable of it, Fenris will take them both as far from this place as he can or die doing it.  
   
He has run this road already, after all.  
   
A silver bell jingles faintly in the next room. Fenris rises smoothly to his feet, ignoring the ache in his knees from almost an entire morning of waiting for Danarius, and leaves Hawke in the white marble antechamber to make his way into Danarius's bathing rooms. There have been no further repercussions from Hawke's dropped china during his banquet, but neither has there been another banquet; instead, Danarius seems content to know both Fenris and Hawke dance attendance on him like puppets, waiting every moment they are awake to catch the glint of a command in his eye, the implicit order in the wave of his hand.  
   
The bathing room is muggy and thick with steam, Fenris's bare toes sliding on the damp tile floor, but he does not hesitate as he crosses the room to the enormous clawed-foot tub dominating its center. A pair of expressionless slaves helps Danarius from the tub while a third waits patiently with a navy silk robe; it might well be the lingering remnants of his freedom, but the old man seems _older_ than he remembers, and even though there is a part of him that thinks he _ought_ to fear him, this wrinkled, pasty man that owned him for so long, Fenris can find nothing but disgust.  
   
"Ah, Fenris," says Danarius as the slave wraps him in the robe and knots the belt around his waist. "Good, I wanted to see you. Come here, my boy, and walk with me."  
   
He does, dutifully, and Danarius tucks one silk-covered arm into Fenris's, stroking the inside of Fenris's elbow in a caress. The feel of Danarius's fingers on his skin is almost lewd—the man is soft and perfumed and cold like a fish, but Fenris tamps down his revulsion and his hate as Danarius leads him into his opulent bedroom. _Not yet. Not yet._  
   
"I was thinking about you, you see," Danarius continues conversationally. "Because a thought occurred to me in the bath. One _does_ find inspiration in the oddest places."  
   
When it becomes clear that Danarius expects an answer, Fenris says, "Of course, Master."  
   
"I realized, pet, that you and I have some unfinished business between us. Do you know what I mean?"  
   
Fenris does not, but Danarius's fingers tighten just enough that his nails dig into Fenris's arm, and the sudden sense of foreboding brings a cold chill to the back of his neck. "No, Master."  
   
"You cost me something very dear," says Danarius, and now his tapered fingernails dig deep enough into Fenris's skin to make him flinch, to draw blood. "I do not have so many apprentices, Fenris, that you may slaughter them as you please."  
   
The cold chill drips straight down his spine.  
   
 _Hadriana._  
   
In truth, he has completely forgotten about her—save his memories of his torment in this place, he had allowed her no quarter in his heart, keeping those spaces for other things—but now he sees again in vivid color the crush of her heart in his hand, hears the panicked cry of _you have a sister!_ and _damn_ Varania for her betrayal, feels again the brilliant flood of satisfaction at her death that he only just keeps from his face. Danarius's scowl is black enough, and this will be _painful_ enough that he has no desire to exacerbate the man's irritation.  
   
"What, no words? No pleas for mercy?" His pleasant smile is gone, his veneer of calm peeled away to reveal the pulsing fury just underneath.  
   
The very idea makes Fenris want to laugh. Instead, he says only, "No, Master."  
   
He expects the pain, but the sheer magnitude of it surprises him all the same. Danarius's magic lances straight through his arm like an iron nail, a thick stabbing agony that spreads along the lines of his lyrium up over his shoulder and across his chest, as if Danarius paints with liquid pain rather than ink. The brands have been kept mostly drained—even now, Danarius does not trust him—but even this is enough to lock his arms at his sides, to send long clenching cramps up the muscles of his back until his jaw creaks with the tension. His eyes are squeezed shut but he feels the sting of Danarius's magic in the air—and then it abates, just for an instant.  
   
Fenris sags but stays on his feet; he is perversely proud of this until Danarius smiles, a thin gleaming smile that is more teeth than mirth, and then the agony comes again.  
   
He does not know how long Danarius tortures him. Long enough that his fortitude breaks, that he ends up on his back, arching his spine against the plush crimson carpet in helpless seizures; long enough that the burning torment of the lyrium seems to set his skin on fire. There is malice in this persecution, a vindictive pleasure in his screams—and he does scream, he feels them dragging out of his throat—and though it is less than his own hatred for the man it is made potent by both blood magic and his arrogance, and before Fenris's eyes roll back in his head he sees the ceiling of the room reflecting the ice-white glow of his tattoos.  
   
Danarius continues, unrelenting, for what seems like hours. The anguish comes in waves, punctuated by brief bouts of respite just as agonizing in their sudden relief, and by the time Danarius eventually bores of his suffering, Fenris is little more than a shuddering heap at his feet. The lyrium still pulses with aftershocks, the waves of light rippling down his neck, his chest, his legs; they show through his leathers and Fenris remembers like a dream Varric being impressed by that idea—but now they are nothing more than a distraction for his master, and when the torment ebbs enough that he can bite back his groans, Danarius kneels in fascination to run one long finger up the length of Fenris's thigh.  
   
Fenris would have liked to have gasped—the intimacy of the touch is shocking, after all this time—but his teeth are still locked together in pain, his muscles convulsing helplessly and his breath coming in short, sharp inhales through his nose, and Hawke still cannot run, so he only wrenches his head away. Embrace the light, he thinks, a passage from the Chant that seems particularly appropriate. Weather the storm—endure, _endure—_  
   
But when his finger reaches the outside of Fenris's hip through the leathers, tracing the long curl of lyrium that twists around his waist, Danarius drops his hand away rather than continue further along Fenris's body. His surprise makes him glance at the man before he can school his face into indifference, but Danarius's eyes are calculating, and Fenris _sees._ Danarius knows that he is not yet complacent, not yet rebroken to the magister's exacting standards even with Hawke collared behind him—realizes that even now Fenris has his limits, that there are some things that will push Fenris beyond tolerance. Some things that would make death preferable for both him and Hawke alike. Danarius knows he has pushed Fenris too hard, yes—but he does _not_ yet realize he has utterly lost control of his pet, that he'd snapped the leash when he'd leashed Hawke to that column, and Fenris grasps this truth with both hands. It is their greatest advantage, this miscalculation, this _underestimation_ , and Fenris plans to exploit it to the fullest.  
   
"Get up," Danarius says, and as he stands he turns away without interest in his slave's struggles.  
   
It _is_ a struggle to rise, though; Fenris's muscles are not yet under his control, the screaming ache leaping to stop his movements every time he shifts without caution. Eventually, he makes it to his feet, his thighs spasming under him, and he stands awaiting Danarius's orders with ragged gasps hanging in the air. His lyrium still flickers sporadically.  
   
"Go away, my pet. Lick your wounds and return to me in the morning."  
   
"Yes, Master," Fenris says to his back, and he cannot quite keep the disgust from his voice.  
   
Danarius looks at him, then, and his eyes have the sudden predatory gaze of a vulture, waiting only for its prey to stop struggling before devouring it. He sees anger, and fear—and worse, a latent _lust_ that makes his mouth go dry. He had dared to hope, earlier, that the magister's appetites had changed while he'd been free, but he sees now that he has been completely, terribly mistaken. There is a promise in those eyes—Danarius's restraint does not mean _no,_ but instead _not yet_ , and Fenris knows with sudden clear assurance that both he and Hawke are nearing ever closer to disaster. They need to go, and go _soon—_ the magister is a blade sheathed in silk, and every day they delay the silk slides that much further away from the steel waiting to fall.  
   
He flicks a hand in dismissal, and Fenris flees.  
   
The next few moments come in still, hazy images, like the colors of a painting run together with water. He sees Hawke's eyes as she rises to meet him, wide in a face gone white with worry; he sees the long scarlet stretch of the carpet runner as they stumble down the hallway, her shoulders bearing the brunt of his weight; he sees the canvas of his cot against the unpainted plaster of his wall, and then—he sees nothing at all.  
   


\---

  
   
Once, when Hawke's mother had still been alive, she'd come upon Fenris waiting in the foyer of Hawke's estate. Cornered him, really—he'd stood thinking Hawke was ready at last, but Leandra had appeared instead, and between her warm smile and her inquisitive eyebrow he'd been reduced to all the stilting awkwardness of polite conversation. The details of their chat escape him, now; he remembers only her obvious welcome into her house and her insistence that he stop by anytime he liked—and under everything else the _discomfort_ of knowing that these offers were made with full awareness of the uneasy peace he and Hawke had just managed to regain.  
   
They'd talked for maybe ten minutes—a very, very long ten minutes—and then Hawke had come barreling downstairs with her hair hastily tied back and her staff in her hand, and when she'd seen them together her cheeks had flushed so quickly he'd thought at first she was ill. But then she'd sailed past them with a breezy quip, her head held high despite her blush, and he'd turned to follow her before Leandra had caught his wrist in her hand, his wrist that was bound with Hawke's ribbon.  
   
She'd smiled at him, and she'd said, "Thank you for taking care of my daughter."  
   


\---

  
   
Hawke's hand is on his cheek.  
   
He turns his face into it without thinking—his head _pounds_ and it feels like a dense fog has settled between his ears, but for some reason it seems like a long time since Hawke has touched him, and to feel that touch now eases a deep-buried ache in his chest. Her cool fingers ease the throb behind his closed eyes and he lets out a low sigh, feeling as if it is the first deep breath he has taken in months.  
   
And then Hawke's voice, softly: "Are you all right?"  
   
Frankly, he is not—he feels as though he's been hit by one of her bolts of lightning, but the memories are blurry and indistinct, and when he tries to focus on them the throbbing behind his eyes returns. "I will survive, I suppose," he rasps at last, then adds with curious incaution, "I dreamed of your mother."  
   
"My mother?"  
   
She sounds curious but not offended. Fenris is reassured by that, calmed even more when her thumb smoothes over his cheekbone in a comforting gesture. "Hmm," he says, forgetting for a moment the thread of the conversation, and then, "Yes." He means to say more, to tell her the rest of it, but Fenris stretches to ease a cramping muscle in his back first, and the convulsive twinge that ripples down his spine reminds him of how very much he detests—  
   
—detests Danarius's magic.  
   
Fenris sits up in a rush, ignoring the spike of agony shrieking down the muscles of his stomach. No _,_ no _, no—_ but the truth stares him in the face; here is his cot and high square window, letting in a thick bar of late afternoon sunlight; here is his lyrium still sparking with the remnants of a magister's amusement; here is Hawke, kneeling by his side in her white robes and her golden collar and the empty hole of her memory.  
   
"Master?" says Hawke, her eyebrows pulling together in concern.  
   
A _vicious_ curse tears out of him, and Fenris pushes up from the cot swiftly enough to nearly knock Hawke over. A dream, a stupid, sentimental _dream_ and he'd forgotten where he was, forgotten completely what he'd done to _Hawke_ —he slams a fist into the wall by his hip, furious and beyond frustrated with himself, and it is not until Hawke rights herself without looking at him that he gains control of his surging emotions, of the dim pulses of lyrium skating up his arms.  
   
"I did not mean to frighten you," he says shortly. His fist is still clenched against the wall.  
   
She bows her head and he sees a blush starting over her cheeks—just as it had in the dream, and so unbearably different. "I'm sorry, Master," she says, "if I was too free with my actions. You seemed to be in a—great deal of pain."  
   
His throat is so tight, but he must speak; he swallows once, and then a second time, and then he says, "No, you were not—too free." The lump is still there, still insistent and aching, but he forces his voice around it. "Thank you for your assistance."  
   
Hawke leans forward, eyes bright. "Then it did help?"  
   
He is not sure what she means, at first—what _it_?—but as she settles back on her heels, he sees the golden links of the collar around her throat and—and the red, fresh-blistered skin under it, the recent and livid band of injury left by heat rather than gold. Fenris steps forward before he can stop himself. "What did you _do?"_  
   
She flinches back at his tone, at the anger in his voice, but it is out of surprise and guilt rather than fear, and before he can make sense of that she is already straightening, already lifting her eyes up to his. "I _helped_ ," she says without faltering. "You needed healing and I couldn't do much but I—I knew how to heal you."  
   
He barks a laugh—it will take more than a bit of magic to heal the wounds he bears—but it is threaded with a deeper disbelief, a breathless crushing hope as agonizing as anything Danarius might have done to him.  
   
She remembers her magic.  
   
It is a small step, barely recognizable even as that, but in the month and more Hawke has been gone from him he has nothing, _nothing_ to sustain him but his own shredded will; this is as precious to him as air, as a star at the end of a long-swelling storm, and without realizing he has moved, Fenris finds himself kneeling on the floor in front of Hawke. One hand stretches out as if of its own will, the lyrium glittering now with sunlight instead of his master's touch, and when she still does not glance away, Fenris slides his fingers under the chain around Hawke's neck.  
   
The skin is hot to the touch and a violent red, blistered and painful even to look at; Fenris lets his fingers ghost over the edges of the burn, holding the delicate chain away from the suffering she has undergone in his behalf. Her sympathy, her feelings for _him—_ again they have burned her, have scarred her with their tenderness, and he pulls the repulsive infection of Danarius's brutality as far from that honor as he can. In truth, he would like nothing more than to tear the thing from her throat—the gold is weak and soft, a mark of ownership in its fragility alone, but it is still too soon to escape and Danarius would notice its absence immediately, so instead he keeps his fingers between its links and her neck as long as he dares, hovering over the wounds taken for his sake. It is the only protection he can still give her.  
   
She meets his eyes steadily. There is still no fear in her face, though, even with his hands around her throat and Fenris realizes: it is not because she has learned to hide it. It is because, despite everything, she _does not fear him._  
   
The very thought is incomprehensible. Fenris opens his mouth but nothing emerges; he tries to draw his hands away but cannot muster the will to break the contact. And then, just as he thinks he must move or crack them both with his indecision, Hawke raises her hand and very, very gently, brushes a bit of his white hair out of his eyes.  
   
Her brow furrows as if at a stray memory. Fenris cannot move. "I think," she says slowly, the tips of her fingers lingering just above his eyebrow, "that you ought to cut your hair."  
   
And then Hawke smiles at him.  
   
His breath catches in his throat. Hawke is smiling at him, _Hawke_ —and it is just for a single flickering instant, as brief as a blink, but he thinks he sees _recognition_ in her eyes—his heart pounds like a drum—it is so loud she must be able to hear it, must be able to feel his fingers trembling against her skin. Her hand slides down to his jaw, a feathering touch that burns like a brand, and then she leans forward just slightly, her eyes half-closing in a look so familiar it _hurts—_  
   
He kisses her.  
   
It is a mistake. Fenris knows as soon as he does it that it is a mistake, as soon as her too-tentative lips brush back against his—there is no fire, here, no press of savage light; her kiss is gentle and nervous and _sweet,_ and while he might have wanted that, once, now it only tells him that this is not the Hawke he lost. Not the woman who loves him.  
   
And yet—it is _Hawke_ without question. His body knows her if his mind does not; her smell, her _taste,_ even the feel of her hair sliding over his fingers—he knows them all, as familiar as breathing and just as necessary, and for a wild moment he thinks of Hadriana, and what followed, and if that could bring back his own memories even for an _instant_ then surely, _surely_ —  
   
"Master," breathes Hawke, and the chain around her neck tightens over his hands.  
   
The word pours over him like ice water. In a heartbeat he is on his feet, his back to the woman still kneeling by the cot, ignoring her flush of surprise and embarrassment as he turns away.  Too soon, too selfish—he wants too much and he asks too much; Hawke as she is now is not capable of meeting his impossible demands without destroying a deep, hidden part of her, and Fenris refuses to allow himself to break one more piece of her mind. She remembers her magic and she does not fear him—for now, let this be enough.  
   
"Master?" she says again, but her voice is low and edged with shame, and Fenris clenches his fists before forcing himself to turn, to look her in the eye. He owes her that much.  
   
"That," he says tightly, "should not have happened." It is a painful, painful truth, but it _is_ true, and Fenris will not sacrifice her mind to his desperation.  
   
"Why not?" Her cheeks are still pink, her lips moistened by his kiss—and under the golden collar, her neck still shows red and scalded.  
   
He grits his teeth. "A number of reasons. You are not well, for one."  
   
"I think I'm well enough."  
   
"You are _mistaken._ "  
   
She glares up at him but says nothing, and the defiant irritation on her face is enough like her old self that he nearly forgets the promise he has barely finished making to himself, nearly crosses the little distance he has only just managed to put between them—but before he can move, a distant bell chimes a silver summons that neither he nor Hawke can ignore. Even as Fenris watches her face smoothes blank and empty—and how much, he wonders, has she been hiding inside that emptiness?—and before he can convince himself not to, he extends a hand to help her to her feet.  
   
Hawke looks at him without fear, and she takes it.  
   
A moment later she is gone, slipped out the door like a ghost to attend to the magister who wants her. Fenris himself has been dismissed until the morning, and Danarius would not appreciate his pet so soon recovered from his chastisement—so instead he stands and watches her go, and when even her shadow disappears, he sinks down on the edge of his cot in a mire of frustration and misery and _hope_ and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.  
   
He will protect her, even from himself.  
   


\---

  
   
Danarius had said morning, but he does not summon Fenris for days. Hawke, though, he has dancing on his will from dawn to dusk; it is only her assurances that Danarius has not touched her again in anger that keep Fenris from taking them both from this place without the slightest shred of an escape plan, without coin or friends or even a destination besides a vague thought of Kirkwall. He knows they will have to flee soon—Danarius's appetite will not be sated by their servitude alone for long—but without the advantages given him the first time, the care of the Fog Warriors and Danarius's injuries, he does not know how they will be able to survive without aid in a country hostile both to them and everything they stand for.

At last, though, one of the other slaves stops him in the hall to tell him he is wanted by the master, and the simultaneous swell of relief and resentment has him turning away without a word to make his way to the study. Fenris knocks on the painted door and, after a pause just long enough to be pointed, is bid to enter.

As far as Danarius's décor goes, this room is not the worst—it is tastefully decorated, such as it is, with an enormous desk made of oak set under the wide, west-facing window, and between the sun and the multitude of bronze candelabras the room is well-lit in the afternoons. Danarius reclines on the low ivory chaise set in the center of the room beside one of his enormous bookcases, a handful of open letters on his lap; Hawke is kneeling at his shoulder with a bowl of salted, honeyed almonds proffered for his pleasure, and even as Fenris approaches them Danarius plucks one of them from the white ceramic and studies it for flaws before looking up.

"Fenris," he says with apparent pleasure, sliding the nut into his mouth, "there you are. I've missed you, my pet."

Fenris murmurs, "Master," and takes his place at the end of the chaise by Danarius's head. Hawke does not once lift her eyes to him.

"So cold, Fenris." His voice is falsely hurt, but there is an undercurrent of thin steel that warns Fenris to tread carefully. "Haven't you missed me, too?"

"Of course, Master," he says easily. In his head, he imagines putting a narrow, sharp blade through Danarius's left eye. "Very much."

"I am pleased to hear it, dear boy," Danarius says, already losing interest with Fenris plying his vanity, and he reaches back with one hand carelessly to pat Fenris on the hip. His fingers linger only a moment too long, and when he turns his full attention back to the letter, Fenris breathes a silent sigh at his escape.

Danarius goes through letter after letter, a seeming year's worth of correspondence, but he demands nothing of them save their quiet presence—although, after nearly a quarter of an hour of Hawke holding the bowl of almonds for her master, Fenris wonders if that is not punishment enough in itself. She does not waver, though, and she does not complain, even when Danarius absently wipes his salt-sticky fingers on her shoulder before turning a page. Fenris does not so much as shift his weight—he is as helpless as always—he lifts his chin instead and lets his gaze drift to the harmless stack of open letters on the magister's lap.

And then his eyes pull into sharp focus. Not so helpless, not so _harmless—_

Danarius does not know he can read.

He skims over the letters with new fervor as Danarius lifts them, coaxing out meaning from each line, each scrawled sentence as quickly as he can. A letter from another magister about an imported menagerie—a thick packet from the man who keeps Danarius's accounts—a note written in a shaking hand on cheap paper and signed—

 _—Varania._

Fenris can barely stifle his snarl of rage when he recognizes that name. Varania, who betrayed him—Varania, who betrayed _Hawke,_ who let her lust for magic command even her love for her brother—he devours this letter like a starving man, eager beyond caution to see what she has to say for herself.

 _To the magister Danarius:_

 _Again I write to beg you to take me into your service. It has been well over a month since [here, several words are scratched out] your recovery of Leto, and with my dismissal from Magister Ahriman's household, I have no patron and no livelihood. You know I depend on your generosity after what I have done. The rumors of my apprenticeship to you are the only thing still ensuring my survival, but if you do not make those rumors truth soon, I will no longer have even that defense._

 _I do not implore you empty-handed. I have been told that a ship left Kirkwall a few weeks after ours, carrying the companions of the Champion and captained by the pirate woman. I give you this information freely, as a token of the trust I still have in you and in our arrangement._

 _Please, Magister. You promised me your apprenticeship. I know you have none, so it cannot be already filled; I beg on my knees for you to remember your promise._

 _Varania_

The trust she still has in Danarius. The _trust_ she still has—Fenris nearly laughs aloud at the thought. He'd hated her before—now he knows she is not evil, only a _fool_ , and this time with the hatred comes pity. Foolish, foolish woman, and damned as much as he for her choices. But more importantly—a ship has left Kirkwall. _Isabela's_ ship has left Kirkwall, and that means she is _alive_ and well enough to come for them, even trapped as they are in a city of blood mages and magisters. And she does not come alone.

Fenris's mind races. A few weeks after them—they must be close to Minrathous by now, perhaps even already arrived if the winds have been fair, but he has no way to be sure; his chest _hurts_ with relief to know that their friends are coming, that Isabela lives and _oh,_ he wishes he knew if Varric was among them—and even though he realizes, too, that Hawke will not understand their flight, he still fights to steady his heartbeat, to remain calm. Rescue is so near; they only need to survive long enough to meet it.

Danarius seems less impressed at Varania's offering; he scoffs, once, and tosses the letter aside without another thought, reaching for the next one in the slowly dwindling stack on his lap. A moment later, though, with a thoughtful air, he asks, "Tell me, Fenris, the name of that woman who fought with you. The dark beauty."

It is painful to give her name to Danarius, even though he has no choice. "Isabela."

" _Isabela,_ " Danarius repeats in tones of deep satisfaction, and he takes another pair of almonds from the bowl before letting his free hand settle on Hawke's neck.

Hawke stiffens—Danarius does not object, and Fenris is beyond grateful for that, but neither does he lift his hand; instead, he simply—rests it there, light and inoffensive, until Hawke begins to relax again. They remain like that for several minutes, Fenris riveted to the image of the magister's hand against Hawke's skin, his long fingers toying with the golden chain, and then with all the subtlety of a snake, Danarius's hand slides gently into Hawke's hair.

The sight of it makes Fenris want to howl. He knows what Danarius is doing—the man had done it to him once, after all—the tender, coaxing touches of a hunter flushing out a skittish bird, winning its trust kindness by careful kindness until it comes willingly to his hand—and is lost. Hawke's hair falls dark and soft around Danarius's pale, delicate fingers and Fenris aches to break every one of them; instead, he reaches for the same stone wall that has shut him away so safely in the past and draws it up around his heart, gritting his teeth to keep from growling. Danarius strokes through her unbound hair in the afternoon silence of his study, a long, languorous, torturous draw to the very ends, and just when Fenris dares to think it might be over, Danarius slips his fingers back into her hair at the base of her neck like a luxury and begins again, and again, and again. He can see gooseflesh on the back of Hawke's arms.

 _Endure,_ Fenris thinks desperately, _endure, endure,_ and does not know whether he means him or Hawke.

At last, at _last_ —an interminable age passes, and _at last_ Danarius stops his caresses and folds the final letter on his lap. Fenris feels wound as tight as a coil, as if the slightest touch might snap the copper spring of his control and loose him, like a child's toy, at whoever dares to be closest. Danarius, though, is all ease and languid relaxation; one hand flutters at Hawke to rise and he hands her the heaping stack of letters, waving to his desk under the window in a silent, indolent command. Hawke carefully shifts the bowl of honeyed almonds to her other hand as she accepts them, and with a grace not even the loss of her memories could shake, she makes her way across the study to stack them in a neat pile beside a tiny lamp made of intricate weaving wire. Her hips sway just slightly as she weaves around a mahogany end table, as she bends to pick up a few stray letters fluttering down behind the desk—Danarius watches, and Danarius _smiles_ to see it, a vicious, edged thing that knifes fear right through Fenris's chest.

And then Danarius lets his eyes slide to Fenris's, the smile still gleaming, and Fenris knows that it is as much for _him_ to see his pleasure as out of any real satisfaction Danarius might feel. Fear settles like a stone in his gut.

He and Hawke are out of time.

\---

Danarius does not dismiss them until well after dark. Indeed, as the sun dips down below the windowsill Fenris begins to fear that Danarius will keep them standing for him all night—he remembers, vividly, the vigils he once kept against the threat of starlight and storm alone—but when Hawke cannot quite stifle a yawn, Danarius looks at her with the indulgent smile of a father and rises from the chaise. "Tired, my pet?"

She blushes and nods, and Danarius cups her chin in his hand. "The go rest, Champion. Come to me in the morning."

Hawke nods again, too tired even to flinch at his touch, and then Danarius bends forward and kisses her on her forehead.

 _Fenris_ flinches, then, and barely sees the nod Danarius gives him to tell him to follow Hawke from the room. He does, however, see Danarius smile as he turns away, and his low, dark chuckle follows them both through the door.

The door clicks shut behind them, and Hawke falls into place behind him with drooping eyes and footsteps that drag through the carpet. A pair of house-slaves passes them in the opposite direction; neither of them lifts their eyes, not to meet the inherent disaster in the gaze of the master's bodyguard and his _pet_ , and soon enough their padding feet disappear around the corner and into silence.

For the moment, they are alone, and Hawke murmurs, "Master?"

Fenris turns—and he _hates_ that he turns at that—but what he sees shocks him out of his disgust: Hawke's exhaustion is gone. Vanished completely, as if it had never been—her head is up and alert, her steps bouncing; her eyes are alight with intent and something deeper, and before he can begin to make sense of what he sees, she has seized his wrist and pulled through the door behind her to the mansion's empty solarium. The room is dark, now, the large, square openings in the ceiling letting in only half-clouded stars rather than the sun, throwing pale stripes of light along the edges of the central columns, but the moment the door closes and locks behind them, Hawke lights a pair of candles resting on the one piece of furniture in the room, a narrow table by the door that is hidden as far from the grated ceiling as possible to protect it from the weather.

The candles do not throw off much glow, but it is enough to see the determined set of her mouth. "What are you doing?" Fenris asks, his voice low.

Hawke raises her chin—he knows this look—and the candlelight throws her eyes into shadow. "You know who I am," she says with only the slightest quaver. "I want you to tell me."

Fenris goes very, very still. There is a part of him that expected this, a quiet part whispering of some distant time, some safer place, but still he is blindsided by her request and the resolve in her voice. And yet—he _cannot_ tell her. "You are—mistaken," he manages.

"You said that before. It's not true now, and it wasn't true then, was it." It is not a question, but he will not meet her eyes.

"I will not speak of this," Fenris snaps, turning away, but before he can take more than a step towards the door her hand has closed around his wrist again with none of the hesitance of a slave and all the assurance that she is _right_ ; she stares at him when he looks back at her, her eyebrows drawn down hard over her eyes, asking without begging for him to tell her the _truth_ —

But still, Fenris cannot speak. How can he tell her of herself? How can he explain that she was not always his slave—how can he say to a woman who knows nothing but servitude _you saved a city, once, and you saved me_ —how can he tell her that in the dark hold of a ship fleeing the City of Chains she'd cupped his face in her hands and whispered _I am in love with you, Fenris,_ as if it were a thing as simple as earth and as clear as the summer sky? He cannot bear it, cannot stomach the thought of explaining what they were to each other like that, like a story meant for _children_ —at least, the story of what they were before he failed her so utterly, when his weakness cost her everything but her life. It is such a selfish thing, he knows, but part of him thinks that if he were to say these things to her, to plumb the memories he has guarded deep in his mind and bring Hawke as she was back to life and still see no recognition in her face, no trace of the woman he lost looking back through her eyes, that it might break what is left of him. Worse, if she accepted his words as truth, if she touched him with the hands he used to know so well…to feel that touch without love, to lose her _again_ —

He does not think he could survive that twice.

No. If he must tell her, let it wait until they are free and safe. Or safer than they are here, at least, because Danarius knows now he can be caught and Hawke will need to be protected—no, let it wait to another time. When he is more prepared to face his loss.

Fenris tries to pull away. Hawke refuses to let go. "Tell me," she says— _orders_ —and there is no deference in her voice.

"I will not." _I am too afraid._

A breeze picks up, swooping down from the open ceiling, and one of the candles gutters out—still, between the last candle and the thinning clouds her narrowed eyes are more than visible, as is the quick movement of her hand as she darts it into her belt and pulls out—

His ribbon.

 _His ribbon_.

"That is _mine,_ " Fenris snarls, reaching for it before he realizes he has moved—but Hawke pulls it back, close to her chest, and watches him with level eyes.

"I heard you talking, that night," she tells him. Fenris watches the scarlet band trail between her fingers, looping over her thumbs, and something in his chest aches like a fist. "And—the master calls me Champion."

He does not know what to say, whether affirming or denying her words would bring them both more pain, so in the end he says nothing.

And yet, that seems answer enough for Hawke. She steps closer, suddenly, and the rush of air makes the last candle flicker wildly, a dancing flame that catches on her eyelashes, on the curving pale arch of her cheekbone as she tilts her head back to look him in the eye.

"I know you," Hawke whispers, and the candleflame goes out.

Again there is no doubt in her voice, no hesitation—there is only a driving light in her eyes that shines in the cold beaming of the stars like a star of her own, and when Fenris's lips part it is as inevitable as a rushing tide, as swift-flowing rapids that hurry white and frothing to fall over the edge.

He breathes, "Yes."

She raises the ribbon between them and the scarlet trickles over her fingers, more vivid in the darkness of the room than it ever was in the feeble wash of Danarius's candles; her gaze flickers down to it and then up to his face and he hears her draw in a quiet breath that takes his own with it. "Yes," she says in a soft echo, her eyes closing, and then her hand reaches up to touch his shoulder in a feathering touch he barely feels—the clouds break above them and a thin watery shaft of moonlight spills in through the opening in the ceiling to swallow up bits of her hair in light and she exhales—and then before she can stop herself, before he can think even to move, her hand ghosts down his arm to wrap around his wrist, her fingers curling around the space where he used to wear her favor like a breath, like the murmuring end of a song.

His heart thuds in his chest. The hope surging in him is painful in its insistence, agonizing in its crushing press against the stone wall he has kept so safely around his heart—he dreads to break it and longs for it at the same time, but he knows that if he knocks the last of his defenses away now they will crumble forever, will turn to dust at his feet in the merciless pound of hope and everything joined to it, the fear and hate and remorse and the love that string after it in bright sliding beads of light, as weak as a thread and as terribly strong as steel.

And yet—and yet—

And yet, as Hawke, with her eyes still closed against the dark, drops the ribbon between them down to join her other hand and his, as she twists it around his wrist with fingers that shake as badly as his own, Fenris does not stop her, does not move other than to clench his fist at his side as he watches her hands tie the ribbon around his wrist for the second time in his life.

She binds the knot.

He sees more than hears her gasp, sees the sudden hunch of her shoulders as a thing long lost nears home, sees the wild and desperate yearning in her eyes as she raises her head and searches his face for the truth Danarius has taken from her. Between them, her fingers do not release the knot she has made—and Fenris _decides_ —he shatters the wall in one motion, throws every hope he has on the burning altar of this moment, abandons himself to the unsteady trust in her eyes without looking back.

He reaches down, and he twines her fingers into the cloth wrapped around his wrist, and he leans forward until his hair brushes against her own.

"Remember this," Fenris says, his voice low and uneven and rasping, and then, for the first time since they were taken, he says, " _Hawke_."

Hawke looks up at him, her eyes spattered with stars, and she blinks, once, slowly.

There is no great burst of magic, no sudden whirling winds to pick up the ends of her hair and rattle the door in its hinges, no swelling light to send the shadows racing back to the evening's edges. There is not a sound or a movement or even a word in the still hush of the night; nothing marks the quiet moment apart from the one that came before save for the fact that Hawke closes her eyes, and she opens them again, and—

She remembers him.

Hawke looks him in the eyes and he can see that she remembers him, and she raises her trembling hand to touch his cheek, and she says, " _Fenris—_ "

His heart stops dead. He sucks in a breath through the iron band squeezing his chest and her mouth trembles—

And then Hawke draws back and slaps him open-handed across the face.

His head snaps to the side and Fenris staggers, unbalanced by more than the sting, his thoughts crashing into each other like storm-tossed ships. It hurts, but his chest hurts more—his heart feels like it is cracking in two with something past joy, a thing too deep for a word so easily said aloud—she _remembers_ him, remembers _herself_ —but shadowing it is a grief and despair that tug at him like anchors, because her strike means that she remembers too the things he has done to her since then, the inexcusable horrors he has brought down on her at nothing more than the order of a magister. He straightens without touching his face, and for a long, long moment they stand still in the darkness, caught between impossible truths.

And then Hawke curls her fingers into the collar of his jerkin, and when she pulls his head down to hers he can see the tears standing in her eyes—at last, Fenris knows that this is their end, when she will surely tell him to leave her side for the pain he has given her, and he braces himself as she blinks to keep back her weeping. He deserves no less.

"You gave up," she says instead, so close he can feel her breath on his lips, and the first tear slides down her cheek. She hits his chest with the heel of her hand, once, her eyebrows pinched together in mute and helpless fury, and more tears track down to join the first. "You gave _up,_ Fenris," she accuses, the sound like a thorned vine dragging out of her throat, and then her face crumples as her fingers slide cool over his stinging cheek, as she begins weeping in earnest. "I'm sorry," she whispers, her breath hitching brokenly. "I'm so _sorry_ , Fenris, for leaving you like that. I'm so sorry."

 _She_ is sorry— _she is_ —"No!" he says, just as hoarse and just as shattered, "No, Hawke, _no_ —don't—" How can she do this—how can she apologize to _him_ as if she has done something wrong? He _had_ given up, had let the thick grey despair settle around him without a murmur of protest, embracing his hopelessness as a defense of its own instead of fighting for himself—and for Hawke. _He_ should be the one on his knees begging for her mercy, as if he has any right to ask a single thing of her now. Fenris tries to speak and his voice catches on the swelling lump in his throat; he swallows once, and then again, and then chokes out, "Hawke, forgive me. Forgive me."

She shakes her head, a half-laugh sliding between her sobbing gasps. "There's nothing to forgive— _Fenris_ —" she says his name like a winging prayer, like a thought at dusk, her face twisted with her grief and a sorrow she should have never had to bear, and then her other hand joins the first to cup his jaw with a tenderness he does not deserve, and in the narrow clear light of the stars, she leans up and kisses him.

His eyes close—he cannot stop himself, cannot stop the wild soaring thing leaping in his chest— _this_ is his Hawke, the fire and the steel and the strength that shines even through her tears; this is the piece of his heart torn away, returned to him at last in the darkness of a silent, empty solarium by pale hands that tremble even now on his skin. He is burning with her taste, all salt and gold—he draws in a sharp breath through his nose and bends his head for a better angle, his mouth opening over hers to drink her in as his palms draw up her arms, curling around her shoulders, his fingers sliding across her linen robe to splay over her spine—

Fenris wrenches back to hold her at arm's length. His head drops farther between them, letting his hair fall over his eyes clenched shut, her taste still on his lips—they are both gasping and the sounds slide like silk through the air around them—but Fenris cannot lift his gaze to meet hers, because still on the bones of her shoulders are the scars he has left there, the long weals not yet healed, a material testament to the cruelty he has failed to protect her from. "Hawke," he manages, as if there is possibly an apology he can offer for this, "I—"

"No, you don't have to—"

" _Hawke_ ," he says, his voice ragged, and she falls silent. His knees threaten to buckle under him and for a moment he thinks that would be fitting, to kneel before her like the slave he is and plead for her clemency—but there is another part of him, a better part made _greater_ than that not from anything he has achieved in battle, not from his unending flight, but by Hawke's unshakable conviction that he is a man as much her equal as any. It is this part of him that he draws on now, pulling a line from a well so deep in him that he has almost forgotten it existed.

Fenris lifts his head. He can offer her precious little, here, but he _will_ give her this. "Hawke," he says again, and this time it is not the abject, cringing grovel of a slave desperate to avoid punishment—this is something else, something all his own, something straight-backed and proud and _free_ as he looks her in the eye, as he faces without flinching the guilt of his mistakes. "I am _sorry_."

He is glad when she draws back, when she herself straightens to give his words their due. She knows how much this costs him, how impossible a thing this is to smooth over with a few blithe words and an embrace. A minute crawls by like an eternity as she considers, her gaze level and opaque enough to stop his heart for the second time in this room; her crying has slowed, he notices, though the scant light of the night sky still glitters on her cheeks, and then, at last, she shakes her head and steps forward, close enough that her chest brushes his, close enough that her heat reaches straight through his skin to thaw out the last lingering shards of ice.

"Fenris," she says, a wry smile quirking up one corner of her mouth, "it is forgotten."

Fenris laughs. He doesn't mean to—by all rights he should be pained by the probing of a bruise still so tender—but he is startled and Hawke is grinning and he laughs, despite everything, and then her face blurs at the edges and he realizes he is crying, too.

He puts a hand to his face, overcome with shock and gladness and the deep, sudden ache of _relief_ , and his fingers come away damp. Hawke's mouth falls open in surprise. "Fenris!" she cries, half-amused, half-alarmed. "I'm sorry, I didn't—was it that bad? _Maker_ , sometimes I just—Carver always said I had the worst timing—"

Fenris surges forward and kisses her. He kisses _Hawke_ , and it is like the sun bursts between them. There is no hesitance here, no delicacy; this is oil set to flame, Hawke's arms wrapping around his neck in a crushing embrace even as he curves over her, frantic to be as close as possible. His hands race up her back, over the welts still raised there—they are a reminder, now, not a warning, and though she hisses through her teeth she holds him tighter—and then his fingers tangle into the little gold chain around her neck and they both jerk back.

They stare at each other in the dark, their breaths mingling in the air between them. It is such a simple thing, the necklace, its elegantly-worked links pouring over his palm like water; even now the gold glimmers, fine, and fragile, and binding like iron.

It takes only his will to break it.

The thing tears apart in his hands like paper. A thousand tiny, twisted links scatter across the floor in a field of sparks; Hawke throws back her head and laughs, and the pealing ring of it drowns out the weaker song of gold on stone. The blistered collar around her neck, though, is not so easily removed—the skin is still swollen and red and hot under his careful fingers, but when Fenris dips his mouth to the very edge of the still-whole skin beside it, Hawke leans into him and hums in approval. The vibration thrums between them and ignites something deep and roaring in his chest—his hands slide to her hips without conscious thought, and then he is guiding her backwards in stumbling steps until she is pressed against one of the smooth marble pillars in the center of the room.

Hawke gasps as her back hits the column, a short, stiff sound that has Fenris pulling away from her—can he do nothing without causing her more pain?—but already her hands are wrapped around his arms to pull him back, on his shoulders, in his hair, the faintest wash of her returned magic skimming over the lyrium brands as if it is simply too much to keep pinned inside her skin. Her magic ripples down his spine and Fenris shudders, bowing his head again to her neck, seeking out that same spot under her ear until she gasps for a different reason and her fingers dig into his scalp.

"Fenris," she says into his ear, half-laughing and breathless, and he wonders how many times he will hear his name from her lips before the sound of it no longer makes him want to weep. "You have a _damned_ good memory— _ah_ —”

He laughs against the mark his teeth have left and that, too, is a victory of its own, and then he slants his mouth across hers in a searing, open-mouthed kiss that knocks the breath from both of them. Three years, three _years_ —how has he lived three _hours_ without this woman's touch? He laughs again, though it is tinged now with bitterness, and brushes a gentler kiss over her lips that makes her eyes flutter open.

"I remember your touch as if it were yesterday," he answers her without drawing back, his voice quiet and ragged and honest, and his gaze does not falter. He has failed her in so many ways in the last three years, worse still in the last two months, but—he is strong enough for this. Hawke's arms wrap around his neck and his own hands slide lower on her hips, his thumbs dragging across the linen of her robe. Her eyes nearly glow in the shadowed room. "There is nothing," he continues, his voice dropping even further, and he wonders if she can feel his heart pounding in his chest, "that would be worse than living without you again."

"Aren't we both lucky you won't have to, then," she whispers, grinning through a fresh set of tears as she wipes his own from his cheeks, and just like that—he is forgiven. It is too easy, too _painless_ —he is too overwhelmed to understand, so instead he loses himself in the touch of Hawke's hands and the sounds of her half-muffled moans, tasting the salt on her cheek and the heat of her mouth opening under his. He presses even closer, his hips pinning hers flat against the pillar; Hawke's teeth drag at his lip and he growls, and though she laughs to hear it her arms tense around his neck and he feels her hips buck hard enough against him to strain the hair-thin wire of his control.

" _Hawke,_ " he groans, breaking away as she rolls her hips again. "Not—not here—"

She laughs again, though it is a shredded sound, and drags up one leg to hook around his waist. "At this point, Fenris," she says earnestly, ignoring his choked curse, "it wouldn't matter if here was the middle of Andraste's blessed breakfast nook."

It is _such_ a mistake—there is only a single locked door separating them from the rest of the house, from a magister more likely to kill them both than see either of them free again—but they _are_ free, now, he and Hawke alike, and their choices are entirely their own; his hand skims from her hip to her thigh to the crook of her knee, holding her flush against him, and with the last fraying vestiges of his restraint, he asks, "Are you certain?"

" _Oh_ , yes," says Hawke, and her leg tightens around his waist.

That is all—that is enough. His mouth falls hard over hers and his control snaps—hers is no better, her fingers yanking at his belt as if its very presence offends her, and he drops her knee only long enough to tug her smalls down over her shifting hips. She shimmies out of them and kicks them away into the darkness with a fervor that makes him grin; a moment later, his belt sails off to join them with the soft slap of leather on stone, and then Hawke's arms are on his shoulders and he is sliding both hands up the backs of her thighs—he lifts her into the air in one swift movement and she sucks in a breath, her legs clamping around his waist hard enough to bruise and he _savors_ that feeling, savors more the startled laugh she lets escape as he presses her back against the pillar. Her weight shifts in his grip as she leans forward to kiss him fiercely, one small hand insinuating itself between their hips to jerk at the laces of his leggings and that touch _alone_ is almost enough to undo him. Her other hand is twisted into his hair tight enough to hurt and he focuses in that glinting pain instead—and then her fingers brush over his bare skin for the first time in three years and not even his fear of discovery is enough to muffle his broken groan.

Hawke curses in his ear, soft and vicious, and then she says, " _Now_ , Fenris—" and that is all he needs to rock her weight up against the pillar, her hand still wrapped loosely around his cock to guide him between her legs, and then she releases him to drape both arms around his neck for balance and with a rasping oath of his own, he slides home.

They stare at each other for a long, trembling moment. There is a part of him that cannot believe this unlooked-for grace, the very idea that he is even here with her, that she has _permitted_ this—it is the same part that cannot begin to quiet the savage heat rising unchecked in his chest as Hawke's fingers spasm on his shoulders, as she leans her head back against the pillar to adjust to him and bares her blistered throat—and then she whispers, again, "Now," and he _moves_ —

It is as if he has stepped into the heart of a storm. Her magic skitters through the lyrium like lightning, setting every inch of his skin on fire; her heels dig into the backs of his thighs as her legs lock harder around him, as he drives into her again and again, her hips cushioned against the marble only by his hands and the thin leather of her belt. Still, neither of them looks away to lose even an instant of this—her eyes glitter with starlight and something more profound, something that scores into him as deeply as her words had in the dim hold of a ship bound for Minrathous, both of them bound and chained and muted with fear. There are no chains, now, iron or otherwise, but Fenris feels the same consuming urgency, the same tense need to hold her closer and show her, _somehow_ , exactly how much she means to him.

They are not gentle with each other, here, but this—a dark, unused solarium in the heart of Danarius's estate—is not a gentle place; Hawke rolls her weight up to her arms to brace herself on his shoulders and the muscles of his thighs flex as he lifts her higher, lunging upward until her teeth clench around a cry. This he remembers, too; he feels his lips curve in a feral grin and he thrusts up again to pin her against the pillar—her eyes slam shut only for an instant before she forces them back open, her mouth curling in a brutal smile that matches his own. It does not take much longer—this moment is not meant to linger, after all—but she does not look away again, and when she comes in a wild, clenching arch that nearly tears her hips from his grasp her eyes burn into his without blinking.

Fenris is not so resolute; he follows moments after with his face buried in her shoulder, his mouth open in a shout barely stifled by her skin—every muscle in his back seems to seize at once, his lyrium lighting up like white fire, pushing him farther into her in mindless _want_ until he aches with the force of it. It is too hard a thing to be called pleasure, too long looked-for to be so easily dismissed, but at last, just before he thinks he might truly break, the slowing surges begin to edge into nothingness as Hawke strokes her hands through his hair with unbearable familiarity, as his hips stutter to a halt.

The drive dwindles into something softer as the night resumes its quiet dominion, as the evening air seeps in around his pounding heart to let him breathe again. They are both ragged, shaking, and sticky with sweat, and when Fenris presses one last kiss against her shoulder he is not sure if the salt he tastes is hers or his; Hawke lets her legs loosen around him, laughing softly as the easing pressure makes him wince, and then her feet slip to the floor as she leans up to drop a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"I missed you," she murmurs into his lips.

He laughs—the sentiment is his own, but there is no way he can say it aloud without impossible understatement, so instead he smoothes her sweaty hair away from her face and kisses her forehead. She stiffens and he realizes too late that it is the same gesture Danarius had made, branding her skin like the mark of a Tranquil—and then he thinks it is right that he should do this now, brushing away the last traces of Danarius's touch with his own, and she relaxes as his thumb strokes over the skin to calm them both. "Hawke…" he starts, and then trails off. It is too soon, too much to ask—

"I know," she says anyway, a new, harder grin spreading across her face. She puts her hands at the base of her spine and leans backwards, sighing at the satisfying cracks, and Fenris rolls his shoulders to loosen them as he does up the laces of his leggings. His fingers are shaky still and his back aches with his unexpected efforts, but he regrets _nothing_ , and then Hawke straightens again with a groan and turns to peer into the dark room. "I need to find my smalls first, though."

"Such things do take priority," Fenris says, only half-joking as he hunts through the shadows himself for his belt.

She throws him a look and stalks off to disappear behind a column. Her voice floats back towards him with a peculiar echo. "I am not going to kill Danarius with a gusty breeze 'round my nether regions, thank you."

Fenris falters only an instant. There it is, said aloud at last. They cannot wait for Isabela and the others, not now with Hawke's collar broken and her memory returned; they _will_ kill Danarius, here, tonight, but before he can be caught in the enormity of the thought—even couched as it is in, perhaps, less enormous terms—Hawke calls out his name and he turns just in time to be hit in the face by his belt.

"Found them," she offers, laughing, and he sees the slip of white fabric in her other hand. She waves her smallclothes at him with a cheeky grin, but before he can cross the room to explain his numerous and specific objections to such taunting, she has ducked behind one of the pillars to clothe herself again.

Soon enough, though, they are both properly attired and rather more serious, and they stand together one last time before the pale, moonlit door to the solarium. Hawke looks up at him with her cheeks still colored from exertion; a part of him exults even now at the light of recognition in her eyes and he slides one careful hand into her hair. "You are—" he says, and she waits, but words fail him; _beautiful, loved, home_ —none of them works, none of them _fits_ , and in the end he only shrugs and dips forward until his head rests against her own. "I am yours," he says instead, his mouth twisting wryly.

Her eyes close as if she has looked at something too bright, and when they open again, they shine with tears. "I suppose," she says thickly, "I haven't told you lately that I love you."

His heart leaps—but they have no _time_ , and he forces down the sudden elated rush. "You have been—preoccupied."

"That's one way of putting it," she mutters, and then she sniffs furiously and straightens. "Come on," she says, hard and eager and brilliant. "Let's go kill a magister."

Fenris opens the door, and they run.

\---


	3. Chapter 3

Once, about a year after Leandra had died, Fenris had gone to the Hawke estate. He has vague recollections of meaning to fetch something he'd misplaced, the specifics made unclear with age, but he _does_ remember being shown through the house to the small gardens behind it. Hawke had been there with Aveline, an open bottle of red wine on the stone bench between them, and he'd almost apologized for intruding before Aveline had waved off his excuses and Hawke had offered him the bottle. They'd been talking about Ferelden, and Lothering, and of happy homes they'd loved and lost, and the very idea had been so foreign to Fenris that he'd thought he might as well have left after all.

And then Aveline had told a story of running into a ludicrously exaggerated farmer named Barlin outside the Lothering chantry and Hawke had laughed with delight. "Aveline, that _Barlin!_ Did I tell you Bethany got caught in one of his rope snares, once? I heard her shouting halfway across the field and when I got closer, she—ha!" Hawke had wiped away tears of mirth, her shoulders shaking. "She was hanging there like an apple! She almost— _ha_ —she almost set me on fire!"

Aveline had dissolved into laughter and Hawke with her, and Fenris had been left shaking his head in both amusement and uncertainty. Hawke had always been so cautious with her sister's name, so careful to keep her memories close, and he had not understood, then, why she might treat something so cherished so lightly.

"Oh, Maker," Hawke had said, dabbing her eyes. "It feels so much better to laugh than cry!"

\---

They run. Rooms flash by in bursts of blurring color; Fenris sees the same scarlet carpet, the same delicate chandeliers and white-stoned walls he has known from the first days of his memory, as unchanged by the last hour as they have ever been—but now, with Hawke's feet pounding beside his, with her breathless, euphoric chuckles low in his ears, they are wholly different. _He_ is wholly different.

They skid around a corner at full speed and nearly knock over two slaves with their arms full of freshly-pressed linens. "Sorry!" Hawke calls out gaily, an unfamiliar echo in these joyless halls; one of the slaves drops her armload with a shriek and the linen pours out like a cloud at their feet, but they do not slow and Fenris grins despite himself. He knows they may be rushing to their deaths—Danarius has bested them once before, after all—but at least he faces that death with Hawke, who remembers him, who _loves_ him, and he thinks that if she asked now he could hand her the head of the Archon himself.

They hesitate only an instant by the study door to be certain Danarius is not still inside, and then they slip into the dim, empty room. "I saw your armor in the desk," Hawke says, already moving towards it. "Or at least the gauntlets were—yes, here!" She tosses him one and immediately apologizes when the sharpened steel almost takes off an ear; Fenris tugs the other from her grasp with a pronounced frown and within moments, his hands are safely encased in the familiar gleaming claws. His breastplate they find jammed between two bookcases as if Danarius had simply wanted it out of the way, and soon enough Fenris is tightening the bloodstained straps around his chest with a gratification he cannot quite hide.

"It's dented." Hawke fingers the scarred grooves scouring over his heart, left by the blunted head of a mace so long ago in The Hanged Man that it might as well have been another lifetime.

Fenris catches her hand in his, careful now not to scratch her, and pulls it away. "It is not beyond repair."

"If you say so," she says, leaning up for a quick kiss, and then they move to leave the study—"Oh, wait, wait!" Hawke spins on her heel and bends over the enormous desk, sending the intricate wire lamp right off the edge with a thump and knocking over most of the letters and packages she'd stacked there so carefully just hours ago, and when she straightens she holds aloft the bowl of salted, honeyed almonds like a trophy. "Yes, still here! —Don't give me that look, Fenris."

"I am not giving you a look."

"You are, you wet blanket," she says even as she grabs a handful of the nuts and eats them with pointed pleasure. "I wanted to try these so badly this afternoon and I never had a chance while he was stuffing his face, and I am not letting this golden opportunity pass me by—"

"Let's _go_ , Hawke," Fenris says, tugging her wrist; she curls the bowl closer to her waist as she swallows, clearly intending to bring it with her, and puffs up with mock-offense at Fenris's derisive snort.

"Trying to separate a girl from her hard-earned reward," she grumbles without heat and follows him from the room, still selecting nuts from the bowl. As little as she means it, though, she does not let it rest; Hawke upbraids him under her breath all the way through the east wing, even when he stops them at the sight of two armed slaves around a corner.

"—stubborn elf and his spikes— _what_ , Fenris?"

He bites back a laugh at the exasperation on her face. "Two guards," he murmurs. "Hold your tirade a moment."

She falls silent obediently, though she rolls her eyes, and Fenris tips his head around the corner just far enough to see the guards' backs.

Then he winces. "Hawke."

"I'm _being_ quiet."

"You are—ah. Crunching."

She swallows with an ostentatious gulp. "They're nuts. They're crunchy. They're _delicious._ "

He glances back at her over his shoulder. "Enough to jeopardize an already-dangerous escape?"

"You weren't the one who had to sit there and smell them," she grouses, but lets the last handful drop in an innocuous—and _silent_ —heap at her feet, then kneels to set the bowl beside them. "We're coming back for these," she mutters and Fenris sighs, unable to muster any true irritation, and when the guards move on to the next rooms, they sprint together towards freedom, leaving the almonds behind.

They are mere steps from the double doors that lead to the central halls when Hawke's head jerks to the side as if at a sudden thought. "Wait, Fenris—I have an idea." He opens his mouth, but Hawke is already running down a side hallway, ducking into the narrow corridor that leads to the kitchens.

Fenris would have liked to reflect on the utter strangeness of Hawke knowing her way through Danarius's mansion so well—but he needs his faculties instead to dodge through the bewildered crowd of slaves still washing the dinner dishes, weaving between towering stacks of glassware and ivory to keep close to Hawke. More than one voice cries out at their appearance, not only in surprise but in warning, too; Fenris knows they do not look like slaves, himself armored and Hawke leading him unerringly, but their outrage means as much to him as their orders—he leaves behind their shouting and their fear, pausing only once when he catches a glimpse of an older elf across the way, a sturdy, middle-aged woman with kind eyes who watches him without fear—

"In here," Hawke says suddenly, yanking on his arm, and Fenris stumbles after her into the torchlit opulence of the dining room. The long mahogany table is just as he remembers from the disastrous banquet, gleaming and oiled and dominating the room even with its empty seats, but Hawke pays it little mind as she races to the stone fireplace at the far end. Fenris follows more slowly after her, not understanding her intent until she tugs one of the upholstered chairs out of its precise ranks and thrusts it against the fireplace as a stepping stool; she reaches up as Fenris steadies her legs and pulls down from above the mantle a greatsword used so long for decoration that Fenris had forgotten its existence.

" _Oof_ , heavy—I remembered this from that dinner party," she says, nearly tumbling over the chair's arm at the unexpected weight of the sword. "It's not very sharp, but it's better than nothing, isn't it?"

Fenris lifts the pommel from her hand and wraps his fingers around it, feeling the leather-bound hilt settle in his grip. It has been so long since he has held a sword that the weight ought to feel unfamiliar—and yet, as he hefts the blade between them, his muscles take over where his mind falters, and Fenris cannot stop his smirk. "A Blade of Mercy," he explains as he takes a practice swing to one side. "Favors given to those who have serviced the Imperium." Hawke clambers down from the chair, careful to stay out of reach until he is satisfied and brings the sword level before her. "Danarius covets these swords," he adds, showing her the splinters of light fissuring down the blade, and her eyes reflect the golden fractures.

Hawke touches one of the cracks very lightly. "Mercy, hm?"

He gives her a hard smile. "I'll think of the irony as I wield it."

A door slams in the distance and they both jump; then, as if it had been a signal, they dart in one motion towards the arched double doors that lead out of the dining room. "At least that's your weapon taken care of," Hawke says, aiming a petty kick at the sideboard as they pass that makes the crystal decanters chime against each other.

 _Oh_ —the thought had not even occurred to Fenris, and as they hasten out of the dining room towards the main hall, he asks somewhat belatedly, "Will you need a—staff?" He knows where Danarius and Hadriana kept their less-powerful spares, though the thought of Hawke carrying something so steeped in blood magic makes him ill.

But Hawke is already shaking her head. "No need," she says. "I've got two months of magic stored up under my skin and if it's all the same to you, I'd really rather not borrow anything from Danarius's evil magic sticks—excuse us!" A startled slave in an open doorway yells something as they pass but they both ignore him; they have entered at last the wide hallway that leads to the atrium, and from there it is only a matter of time before they track down Danarius in whatever stronghold he has made for himself. Fenris knows they will not catch him unawares—the alarm has been raised, after all—but he would prefer to bring battle on his own terms if he is to have any terms at all—

They reach the end of the hallway and slow to a walk, and Fenris forces himself to put away the possibilities in favor of the present. The crimson carpeting is plush under his bare toes here, but the atrium just ahead of them is marble-floored and rife with echoes, and both he and Hawke drop their voices as she eases open the ornately carved door. "It's late. Do you think he'll be in his nightdress?"

Fenris blinks. "He'll—what?"

"Danarius," Hawke whispers, pulling open the door the rest of the way. "Empty—come on. I just meant it'd be appropriate: a disgraceful end for a disgraceful man. 'Magister slain, found in silk pajamas,' and sacred _Andraste_ , who has a room just for whipping slaves, anyway?"

"You're babbling," Fenris says in an undertone, but he is smiling; he has forgotten this nervous habit of hers, and the sound of it is so surprisingly _welcome_ that he cannot bring himself to caution her against it. His sword is heavy in his hand and comforting as they step out into the open expanse of the marbled atrium—

"Ah," says Danarius, his voice echoing in a towering wave, long and drawn-out and viciously satisfied.

Fenris and Hawke both spin on their heels, lifting their eyes to the balustrade above them where Danarius stands, both hands on the white railing. His staff is on his back and ready, as if he has expected this; his grey robes shimmer with magic as he sweeps out an arm in a magnanimous gesture that encompasses both of them.

"My dear pets," he says, oil-smoothed and sweet, "I see I should have leashed you both more closely."

"Not in his nightgown," Hawke mutters with tangible disappointment, though Fenris feels her edge a half-step closer to his back in tense anticipation. "Odds of him sweeping dramatically down the stairs?"

Fenris wants to laugh only for a moment, in a giddy, hysterical kind of way, when Danarius does indeed sweep towards the grand staircase with his long sleeves fluttering behind him. His boot-heels rap on each step like cracking stone, steady and implacable, and his eyes are cold as he pulls the staff from his back. "I warn you, my little Fenris," he says, a thin, humorless smile curling his lips, "that my magnanimity only extends so far. Test me again, and you may be certain that you—and your Champion—will live to regret it."

Hawke snorts, very softly, behind him. "Not the most persuasive offer I've ever heard. At least he's got panache."

The even steps falter only an instant, but it is enough that Fenris knows Danarius heard her speak, and the magister's eyes narrow to slits as he looks from Fenris to Hawke—and to Hawke's neck, bare and unchained. "Ah," he says again, though there is no veneer of civility to soften his tone this time, and he stops about ten steps up from the floor of the atrium, dropping his staff to the marble beside him with an echoing _tack_. "How… _industrious_ you have been in my absence."

His voice is laced with the barest hint of insinuation, but even that is enough to make Fenris stiffen; his knuckles are white around the haft of his stolen sword at his side, his chest aching at the twinned pressures of both fury and fear—the same fear that closes his throat like a vising hand here in the presence of his master. It does not matter that he had lived ten years in freedom before the disastrous meeting with his sister or that Hawke stands behind him still; he can only think of the last two months of abject slavery, the utter subjugation that Danarius has thrust upon him not once, here, but twice. Hawke has only just returned to him—he thinks that if he were to lose her again now it would be the breaking blow on his mind already made brittle, a dry branch bent too far in the storm to survive.

And then Hawke steps forward beside him, and she speaks where he cannot. "Fenris is not your slave," she says, direct and clear, "and neither am I." The words ring like a bell in the arched ceilings of the atrium and Fenris feels the band of terror around his throat loosen enough to swallow—Hawke says it, and it is _true_. She spreads her hands in front of her as if speaking to a child who does not understand. "It's _finished_ , Danarius."

"Is it?" Danarius answers her, his gaze pinning her in place. "You claim victory so easily, Champion, for a woman with such a…delicate spirit. Or need I remind you we have had this conversation once before?"

She shrugs one shoulder in careless unconcern. "Victory's easy to claim when you know what defeat brings. We've survived that, and we'll survive this, too. You are going to die here, Danarius, posturing or no."

Danarius tuts. "You misplace your resentment. You forget it was not I who gave you those scars you bear, nor I who threw you without caution to the mouth of the lion."

"No," Hawke agrees, and Fenris feels his heart lurch before she continues. "You were just the one with the knife to his throat."

Danarius shakes his head, gently disapproving. "Your generosity is astonishing, Champion, both in your forgiveness and your assumption of my authority. Fenris is capable of autonomy, you know, and not every pain he has given you has been at my direction." He gives her the same thin smile, proffering one hand in open bargain. "Lay down your arms, and I will demonstrate my own generosity in return."

Fenris still cannot speak. He does not even have the luxury of motion—his arms are tense enough that the tip of his sword wavers near his feet, his back rigid to the point of cramping. He is a ghost to their solidity, locked in place by fright like a cornered hare, terrified beyond coherent thought of losing Hawke, of losing _himself_ , of the stark and unrelenting dread that Hawke might even now reach up her hand and seal his fate—

"Oh, _please_ ," Hawke snaps, and Danarius retracts his hand as if bitten by her scorn. "How transparent can you possibly—I honestly thought you were better than that, Danarius. _No_ imagination—and what's the threat if we don’t? Let me guess: torture us both until we scream? Again?"

"Nothing so pleasant, my dear girl," Danarius says with tight control. The bottom of his staff scrapes along the stone step.

Hawke's smile is sharp enough to cut. "Then you'll forgive us for not acquiescing, _darling_."

Fenris snorts. He cannot help it, even though he tries—of all the mistimed levity he has heard from Hawke over the years he can remember none more inappropriate, and yet he _laughs_ —and the fear falls clean away from him like the weight of an unclasped cloak. Danarius's face is purpling with apoplectic fury; he raises his staff crosswise in front of him and Hawke takes a half-step backwards, her own magic simmering around her fingers—Fenris falls into a crouch of his own, his muscles tensed now not with fear but with the driving anticipation of battle.

" _Fenris,_ " says Danarius through the glowing sheen of magic, his eyes lit from below like some unearthly fiend out of the Void. "Come to me."

Fenris lifts the sword between them.

"Blade first," he says eloquently, and it begins.

\---

The battle is at once nothing and everything that Fenris expects. It is the same enemy, the same man standing above them in cold contempt as if they are little more than an unwelcome interruption to his evening—and yet it is so different, too. There are no slavers here to help his master, no ambush laid in wait by a sister more concerned with her advancement than her family, no faceless hireling to stand in his way as he surges forward as fast as Hawke's lightning to slay the man who stole her freedom—

Until Danarius brings a tiny, expensive blade across his own wrist. The blood slides over his skin in scarlet rivulets, trailing down the long, streaming sleeves of his robes and Fenris curses even as he speeds up, even as the magic builds thick and rancid in the air around him—twenty paces—ten paces—six paces and _still_ too far away—

And the ground erupts around him.

A half-dozen corpses burst through the marble floor as if it were sand, the stone crumbling to bits under their rotting hands as they pull themselves, literally, from the Void. Fenris curses again and skips back a few steps, careful to keep himself between the dead and Hawke; he glances over his shoulder and she gives him a sharp nod before turning to Danarius on the stairs, fire blazing around her hands like a promise. Fine, then—he will leave the magister to her, for the moment, and spares only a single moment of gratitude that Danarius did not think to bring blood-slaves to this fight. Then the first shambling corpse reaches him, moving more quickly than legs without muscles have a right to, and after that, Fenris thinks of nothing of all.

The first corpse goes down in a single stroke, bones scattering to both sides like hollow chimes that resound around them longer than they should. The second and third reach him at the same time, but even as Fenris sweeps his blade across their ribs a brilliant torrent of flame sears by him close enough to heat the metal hilt in his hand; his gaze follows the streak of fire long enough to see Danarius throw up his staff in a glittering arc of defense, and then the second skeleton he'd struck drags a rusted longsword from a rotted leather sheath. It jabs at him once and then again, too clumsy for Fenris to be in any real danger, and when he ducks under a wild swing it lodges its sword in its fellow's exposed ribcage.

In another battle, it would have been amusing; here Fenris wastes no time. As the first tugs fruitlessly at its trapped blade, Fenris brings the hilt of his sword up hard at the base of its neck; its spine comes apart under the force of the blow and the corpse crumples at his feet. The other, though, is less inept—it does not bother with the sword in its ribs, ignoring the protruding hilt to raise a second sword of its own, and when Fenris lunges away from its downswinging blade a bolt of white lightning crackles through the air where he'd just been standing. Electricity races through his lyrium and he bites back a cry of pain, barely lifting his arm in time to block the subsequent strike from the impassive corpse.

" _Danarius!_ " Hawke shouts, livid, and an icy blast of wind whips by him towards the stairs—but Fenris cannot afford to see if the blow lands because all at once, armed and armored and grinning, the remaining four skeletons are upon him.

The world becomes bones and a whirling blade. His body might remember his skill, but no warrior may go two months without practice and not suffer, and even Fenris cannot endure forever with will alone. One corpse lands a glancing slice on his arm above his gauntlet, stinging but shallow, and though Fenris is quick enough with a finishing blow before it can ready another it is still not fast enough to keep the other three wholly at bay. They catch him between breaths with strikes that stagger him, opening long wounds on his shoulders, his side, deep in his back where he is undefended; his lungs scream for respite and his arms shake under the sheer weight of the sword, taxed beyond their strength with his exertion, and yet he does not stop, does not falter in the flickering light of magic bursting overhead.

Hawke still fights. So will he.

He takes down another corpse as Hawke flings raw fire towards the magister on the stairs; it lights up the room in gold and heat and Fenris spins on his heel, trusting her to keep Danarius's wrath in check behind him. Two more, only two—the taller one lurches towards him with its notched, rusted sword flying down towards his neck and Fenris counters with a long up-slicing stroke of his own. The blades meet in midair with a ringing clang that jars his arms down to his shoulders, sliding along each other with a metallic shriek to send off fiery sparks; the grinning corpse bears down harder above him and for a moment he thinks he will give out under the weight after all—

A fist made of earth and stone barrels through the skeleton's body, leaving its skull hanging suspended in the air for half a heartbeat before it—and its sword—fall at his feet.

"Sorry!" Hawke shouts, and Fenris can hear the mad laughter in her voice as he straightens. "I was aiming for Danar— _ack_ —"

He turns just in time to see Hawke careen backwards, losing control of a bolt of lightning that leaps toward the ceiling as she tries to dodge the whistling daggers of the last corpse. One of the blades catches her tunic at the throat and drags down towards her sleeve and Fenris's heart stops even as he races towards her—Hawke swivels on one foot and puts a hand to her forehead and an instant later, the skeleton is blown backwards as if kicked by a horse—

Right into Fenris's chest.

Its decaying head rolls sideways on Fenris's shoulder, staring up at him with its fixed grin; Fenris permits himself a feral smile of his own, and then he hooks two fingers into its empty, fanatic eye sockets, and in one swift motion he tears the skull away from its spine.

The corpse collapses with a smell like rotted fruit. Fenris pays it no mind; he is already at Hawke's side, one hand coming up to touch the thin line of blood beading along the dagger's path from her throat to her shoulder, the white linen of her tunic falling away to reveal the shiny, waxy expanse of a carelessly-healed scar. Her black hair hangs loose and disheveled around her face, barely covering an already-bruising cheek as she looks up to meet him; Danarius's spells have left other injuries, too—burns and tiny cuts left from shattered ice darting over her skin like angry wasps—but all Fenris can see is the blood on her chest, the new opening of the wound that had begun her suffering in the first place.

"I'm fine—I'm fine," she says breathlessly, pulling his hand away from her heart. "It's not over yet."

Fenris looks, then, towards the shimmering globe of magic that hides Danarius on the stairs. The magister's face is barely visible through the iridescence, but even from here Fenris can see his wide eyes, his fists clenched furiously around his staff, the quivering of his beard as he mouths soundless invectives at them from behind his shield.

Danarius is afraid.

Fenris raises his head, and he says, "It _is._ "

He takes one step, and then another, and then he is running full-tilt across the scorched, pockmarked marble floor of the atrium, his steps pounding and resounding in the high white ceilings with all the inevitability of a thunderhead opening into the storm. Danarius sees him coming and the magister _flinches_ —and even as Fenris reaches the first step the shield flickers and collapses. Go, _go_ —he leaps the steps three at a time but though Danarius stinks of fear he does not surrender; his staff snaps up in a brilliant arc of white light and lightning pours out like a river—Fenris throws himself to one side of the bolt and even though sparks leap the distance and zip under his skin like pinpricking needles through the lyrium he does not slow, does not hesitate because Danarius is _here_ , here and fearing _him_ —

Fire blossoms around them both. Fenris throws up an arm and Danarius screams, a high thin wordless sound, but there is no heat to burn him—his head whips around and there is Hawke at the base of the stairs with her flame-licked arms thrust into the air, bending all of her strength against the man who collared them both, who stole from Fenris the only sanctuary he had ever known; his heart leaps in his chest and he lifts his sword even as Danarius raises one white broken hand in empty pleading through the blaze curling around his long silver sleeves—

He begs, " _Fenris—!_ "

And Fenris brings his blade down on the charred haft of his staff to snap it clean in two.

Danarius stares dumbfounded at the splintered edges only for an instant before Fenris reverses his sword and slams the hilt into Danarius's forehead hard enough to crack his skull. He goes down like a toppled tree and the fire around them disperses in the rush of wind, but Fenris is not finished—he drops the sword with a clang to curl a fist into the collar of Danarius's robes, lifting him bodily to eye level. The man's eyes roll in his head, dazed by pain and shock and Fenris feels his lip curl at the sight of it— _this_ is who he has feared for ten years? This wrinkled, frightened man covered in soot and bruises and his own blood?—and he thrusts the magister away from him into open air. Danarius goes skidding down the stairs and crumples at the bottom in an ignominious heap, his robes fluttering around him for a moment until they settle at Hawke's feet.

Fenris follows him down, each step as implacable as Danarius's had been, and when he reaches the feebly writhing man he reaches down and fists his gauntleted fingers into Danarius's hair, dragging his head up until he faces Hawke. The other hand he phases just so, his lyrium flaring with rippling light, and very, very gently, he wraps his hand around Danarius's heart. It beats like a bird's wing against his palm.

"Thank your master," says Fenris.

Danarius licks his lips, his fingers scrabbling for purchase against the smooth and polished marble under him. Hawke stares down at him impassively, one hand at her throat where the skin is blistered, the other relaxed at her side. His head twists in Fenris's grasp as if seeking escape, but there is no escape for him, here, and no mercy—he swallows when Fenris's grip tightens, and then he opens his mouth and looks to Hawke, and he says, "Thank you."

And then Fenris tears his heart out of his chest.

It beats twice in his hand, as if even now the man refuses to relinquish his power—Fenris squeezes, pitiless, and it bursts under his steel-tipped fingers with a spray of blood. He drops the mangled thing on the wide-eyed, unmoving body at his feet, and the realization settles around him, clear and cold, like the first shaft of a star breaking through a clouded night.

Danarius is dead.

 

Fenris blinks, and the wave crashes in around him. Danarius is _dead_ —his master— _no_ , not his master, nothing more than a corpse—but he _is_ gone—he has killed him with his own two hands, and Fenris looks from the sticky, drying blood on the beaten silver of his gauntlets to Hawke's unsmiling face as if she might be able to explain. "He's dead," he says helplessly.

"I know," Hawke says, reaching out a hand to pull him away from the body.

Fenris looks at her blankly, taking it without understanding.

"I killed him," he explains as she draws him towards herself, her pale hand wrapped in the bloodied metal mess of his own. He can't seem to catch his breath. The painted walls seem very white and very far away.

"I know," Hawke says again, and then her fingers are on his cheeks, holding his jaw in place, her eyes burning into his. "Fenris—stay with me, Fenris."

"I—" he draws in a long, jagged breath, letting his eyes fall shut at the weight of it. Hawke's thumbs stroke across his skin to ground him, anchoring him to himself, and he clenches his hands at his sides as the world settles back into place. "I am here," he says, more solidly, and he opens his eyes.

Hawke looks up at him, and even as he watches her gaze shifts from concern to something softer. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but no words come—he does not know if there _are_ words for the enormity of this thing they have done, that _he_ has done—and instead, her arms slide over his shoulders and she pulls him into an embrace. He stiffens at first—he is covered in another man's blood and not fit to be touched—but she neither relents nor loosens her grip, and soon enough he sags into her, all of his tension relaxing at once in a breath that is nearly painful in its release. Fenris buries his face in her hair, struggling to order his thoughts, to make _sense_ of this senseless brutality; her fingers brush through the hair at the nape of his neck in long, soothing strokes, willing to be patient, to be silent in this silent hall made more a mausoleum than a home.

He does not know how long they stand there in the center of the ruined atrium. Long enough that the blood dries on his gauntlets, long enough that his back begins to ache as the rush of battle fades to nothing, washing away his hatred and his rage and his last lingering fears with it. Long enough that his own arms curl around Hawke in return, holding her more closely against him in both reassurance and comfort until his trembling hands grow steady on the scarred lines of her back.

"Hawke," he says into her hair, both a plea and a promise, and he feels her smile against his neck.

"It's all right, Fenris," she says. "I know it hurts, but—it's all right."

He draws back then, feeling almost whole for the first time in two months, and brushes her sweat-sticky hair out of her eyes. "So wise," he murmurs, and her eyes crinkle with amusement, but before she can speak, a woman screams across the room.

They jerk apart, Hawke's hands bursting into flame as his lyrium burns white—but it is a slave and not a threat, a young elf with her hands over her mouth, appalled and terrified by the sight of her master lying dead at the bottom of a staircase, surrounded by scorch marks and rubble and a half-dozen corpses in various states of integrity.

"This might be a problem," Hawke mutters, letting the fire die out between her fingers, and Fenris cannot help but agree. In the distance they can hear more shouting, more feet hurrying to the atrium, and before they can be cornered by elves more frightened of the Imperium's repercussions than a beaten pair of rebellious slaves, Fenris darts forward and grasps the hilt of his sword, sheathing it on his back as he turns again to Hawke, and one last time, they run.

\---

"So what's the plan?" Hawke gasps as they dart through a doorway. "I mean, besides 'set the whole place on fire and escape in the burning rubble'."

"We are not far from the docks," Fenris says, holding Hawke back as a pair of armed slaves hurry by at the end of the hall. "Isabela has a ship—"

Hawke's hand tightens so suddenly on his arm that it hurts. "She's alive?"

Her eyes are wide and shining and painful with hope. Fenris swallows down his sudden worry that Varania might have been mistaken. "I believe so," he says instead. "I saw a letter to Danarius—her ship followed us from Kirkwall. They may already be here, in the city."

"And Varric?"

"I—am not sure."

She rocks back on her heels, biting her lip. "Okay. All right—oh, wait a moment, a little more came back—" Her fingers brush over his blood-soaked jerkin where one of the skeletons had caught him with a deep gouge under his ribs, and the faint wash of healing magic curls around the wound. She is not strong enough to heal it fully—the fight with Danarius has left them both drained dry—but she has done what she can for them both as they make their way through the mansion, working on the worst injuries when her magic has returned enough to allow it. Fenris still keeps one hand clamped to his side and Hawke has a pronounced limp, but he is relatively certain that neither of them will die of blood loss before one of the slaves chasing them slips a blade between their ribs.

"Clear," says Fenris when the hallway empties, and they move again. The atrium is not far from the front doors of the estate, but the household has rightly guessed their chosen avenue of escape, and neither Fenris nor Hawke wishes to fight again if they can avoid it. It is not that they fear harm—even like this, they are more than a match for frightened elves with kitchen knives—but Fenris has no wish to jeopardize innocent lives for simply being bought by the wrong magister, so instead they wait and they hide and they run.

Luck is with them, though, and Hawke pulls open the doors to the entrance hall without their once being noticed. They slip inside and close the doors behind them, and when Hawke laughs at the sight of the night sky pouring in through the windows above the main doors, Fenris does not try to keep back his smile.

"Do you _know,_ ” Hawke says, spinning around to walk backwards in front of him, her arms spreading grandly to her sides, "what this is?"

Fenris smirks at her infectious glee. "Tell me, Hawke."

" _This,_ my dear elf, is _freedom_."

"A window and sky, human? I can think of one better." His voice drops as he approaches and Hawke's steps slow, a soft smile curving her mouth as Fenris lifts his hand—

 _"Wait!_ "

The whisper hisses between them like a snake and Fenris turns with a snarl, his fingers going to the hilt of his sword—but instead of an armed slave he sees the elf who had cared for Hawke, the middle-aged woman with a kind face and gentler hands than his, and he lowers his arm without drawing his sword.

"Wait," she repeats, stepping closer. She seems—bewildered, and lost, and she stops halfway across the foyer as if she does not know where to go. "You—you killed the master."

"Yes," says Fenris.

She spreads her empty hands in front of her, helpless. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Whatever you wish," he says, turning away. He had not expected gratitude; he had hoped at least for independent thought. "Do what you will."

"What _I_ will—"

"Oh!" Hawke's voice is low and startled. "You're the one—you helped me after Danarius sent me upstairs. After the whipping."

"What?" asks the woman distractedly, but Hawke has already crossed the room to take both her hands in her own.

"I didn't thank you, then," says Hawke. "So let me say it now— _thank you_ for helping me. And for helping Fenris."

"Fenris?" She blinks and her eyes pull into focus on Hawke's face, and when recognition dawns her gaze sweeps to Fenris still standing silently by the door. "Oh," she says, surprised, and then more kindly, " _oh._ Your Champion returned to you, then." He gives a short nod, and she looks back to Hawke. "I'm glad, child. Truly."

Hawke smiles—but there is a clamor of raised and angry voices just outside the door, and she pulls away with regret. "I'm sorry—I'm _sorry_. We have to go. Please, be _careful_."

The woman nods, her back straightening, and Fenris does not know if it is the sudden strength in her face or the unhappiness in Hawke's, but he says, "There is a package from Danarius's banker in his study. If you move quickly, you might be able to purchase freedom for those left here before his death is realized."

The woman and Hawke both stare. Fenris shrugs one shoulder, uncomfortable with their scrutiny—but then a fist pounds hard on the door behind them and they all jump. "Hawke," he says with new urgency; she moves back towards him and with one last glance at the woman standing tall in the center of the foyer, she throws open the front doors.

The night air curls around them like a lover, beckoning them forward to open roads and freedom. Hawke steps out first and the moonlight catches on her hair; Fenris watches her for a moment, her steps light and giddy even with her limp, and then he looks back over his shoulder, into the house that has tormented him for all his living memory, separated from him only by a middle-aged elven slave. "Your name."

The woman smiles, and says, "Mari."

"Thank you," Fenris says, and closes the doors behind him.

 

Hawke is already halfway down the stone steps by the time Fenris catches up with her. They are still not safe—far from it, trapped as they are in a city of blood mages and open hostility—and yet Danarius is _dead_ and he is freer than he has ever been in his life, and when they reach the bottom of the stairs Fenris pulls Hawke into a kiss. It is not long and not half as thorough as he would wish, considering the perils of their current position, but he thinks Hawke understands all the same, and when they break apart they run wordlessly down the long path leading away from the house, following its bends and twists around the well-trimmed trees until they disappear into the dark.

And then Hawke is knocked clean off her feet by a very solid shadow.

" _Hawke!_ " Fenris snaps, his lyrium pulsing light—but before he can strike the shadow resolves itself into a very familiar shape.

"Oof, Merrill— _Merrill?_ "

"Oh, _lethallan!_ " cries Merrill, both arms wrapped around Hawke's neck. "I can't believe you're all right—Creators, I've been so _worried_ —was it very bad? Oh, I _wish_ we'd come sooner but we had to wait until Varric was all right—"

"Varric's alive?" says Hawke eagerly, and more shadows detach themselves from the trees around them.

They're all here.

They're _all_ here—Fenris sees Aveline and Anders hurrying towards Hawke, both of them red-eyed and smiling as Merrill helps her up; Hawke is already crying and reaching for both of them, pulling them into a hug so fierce that Aveline is nearly knocked off her feet. Varric himself is a vision of gleeful satisfaction as he emerges from the trees, Bianca gleaming smugly in the starlight, and the only remnant left of that catastrophic battle in The Hanged Man is a small curving scar that disappears into his hairline. "Elf," he says, grinning, and Fenris clasps hands with more gratitude than he can express.

"Dwarf," he says, swallowing around the lump in his throat—and then suddenly, he is being bent backwards by someone with exceptionally strong arms and kissed. It is, in fact, a very methodical, meticulous kiss, and even before he tastes salt and the sea he knows who it is—which is, perhaps, the only reason he manages to suppress his initial, more violent impulse.

Isabela sets him on his feet again. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes," she says, grinning, and flicks her thumb over her bottom lip.

"Isabela," he says, his voice dry as he holds her firmly at arm's length. "I am glad to see you as well."

"Not glad enough, pet." She winks and pulls away, and before he can even think of moving she has taken two steps and dipped Hawke back in the same intent, systematic kiss she'd given him. Hawke, when she is straightened at last, looks torn between laughter and a stunned sort of amazement, and when she meets his eyes over Isabela's shoulder they both shrug. "Did you miss me?" Isabela asks, smoothing Hawke's hair away from her forehead.

"Every day," Hawke says shakily, and Isabela laughs as she hugs her.

Aveline approaches him, then, and though her embrace is harder than Isabela's it is no less welcome. "It's good to see you, Fenris," she says, the barest hint of emotion coloring her voice. "I was afraid we were going to be too late."

"My fault," Varric says then, tapping his temple. "Blondie did his best, but it takes an exceptional show of force to crack a dwarven skull. Bianca was positively traumatized. Next time I'll duck faster."

Fenris shrugs. "There will not be a next time."

"Dead, then?" Aveline asks, one hand resting on the hilt at her hip.

Fenris thinks of Danarius's heart, red and pulsing in his hand, and the humorless smile he gives makes Aveline shake her head. "With certainty."

"And thank the Maker for that," Hawke grumbles, joining them with the others trailing behind her. Anders's hands are already lit with the blue glow of healing magic, and Fenris watches as the myriad cuts slicing through her skin close over, her pale cheeks flushing with color and her weight shifting again to her injured leg. Even the angry blisters on her neck shrink and vanish, though Fenris knows the shiny, scarred band left around her throat will never fully disappear.

"Thank you," Hawke says when Anders is finished, touching his sleeve; his answering smile is too warm, but Fenris only nods when Anders glances his way. He is still too glad they have come, too _grateful_ that Anders can ease any part of Hawke's pain to begrudge him one of her smiles now, and Anders dips his head in response.

"Oh, you're _hurt_ , Fenris," Merrill says from somewhere around his waist. Fenris twitches away as she straightens. "Was it very bad?"

"No," he says, even as Hawke answers, "Yes."

Isabela laughs and Aveline rolls her eyes, and a moment later Anders's magic is twining through his lyrium, closing up just enough of his remaining wounds and bruises to make traveling comfortable. He nods again and Anders laughs with only a hint of bitterness.

"Welcome to Tevinter, I suppose," he says, shaking his head, and Isabela throws her arm around his shoulders.

"Don't fret. At least you got to see my ship."

"Sick the whole way," Varric mutters in an aside to Fenris, then shrugs as Hawke leans down to hug him too, though Fenris sees his eyes soften at the embrace. "Come on, Hawke," he says at last with a suspiciously gruff voice as she lets him go. "You've stolen our thunder for the dramatic rescue; at least let us give you a ride home in style."

"With pleasure," she says, and smiles—and then her eyes widen and she whirls on Fenris. "I forgot them!"

"What?"

"The _almonds!_ "

She sounds truly dismayed and Fenris cannot help himself—he laughs hard enough that his chest aches, loud enough that a roosting owlet bolts out of its nearby nest, hooting in protest as it wings away. Merrill lets out a startled noise that sounds like a bird herself and he hears Hawke shooing the others away down the path; he doubles over, one hand covering his face, and when Hawke's fingers fall cool and soft on the back of his neck he does not know if he is laughing or crying.

"Fenris," she says, her voice quiet, and his hitching breaths slow. The tips of his gauntleted fingers dig into his skin, scraping across the lyrium hard enough to make them hum and sing with prickling light, and then Hawke reaches down and cups his face in her palms, pulling him up to meet her even though it _hurts_ to straighten a back that has been so long bent.

" _Fenris_ ," she says again, her eyes searching his, and then she leans up and presses her lips to his so tenderly that he thinks he might break into a thousand pieces. Her hands slide to his neck and her mouth brushes along his cheekbone, and then she whispers in his ear, "I _love_ you," and Fenris feels the wild leaping thing in his chest catch on those words; he curls around them like a secret to be kept and treasured and never lost again, and when Hawke drops her forehead to rest on his chest he stares blindly over her head at the mansion that rises proud and silent in the distance, stone and still and empty now of master and memories alike. A breeze picks up as the lightening sky tinges grey, and Fenris turns his face into it until he can breathe again.

Dawn is coming.

Hawke draws back, then, and takes one step towards the others still waiting for them in the trees. She is not smiling, but the joy he can see in her eyes is too great a thing for laughter as she waits for him to follow. He does not move, at first, caught between moments, between the pain-dark pull of the place behind him and the lighter peace she offers, and then she extends her hand back to him and the rising sun breaks over them both like watered gold.

It is as if the long night has never happened, as if Danarius has never lived and Hawke has never forgotten him and there has _never_ been a moment in his life other than this one, here, when he reaches out and covers Hawke's hand with his own. Her fingers curl around his, sliding between the metal of his claws and the lines of lyrium as if they were meant always to be there, and when he breathes again he turns away at last from the silent marble mansion on the hill behind him without looking back, without giving another moment to the shadows of his past when there is something so _bright_ still ahead of him.

Once, she had pointed out a window and sky—but this is freedom. Hawke looks at him in the light, and she smiles.

 

Fenris steps forward.

\---

  


end

  


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End file.
